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EDMONTON — There is an odd patience here at the Edmonton Oilers training camp this fall, an air of serenity for a team that took it to the last possible day on the National Hockey League schedule in June.
A veteran team that has been assembled here has spent the summer healing. Now, it’s time to take another run at the ultimate goal, smarter for having gone through last season’s process, but still stinging from the way it played out.
The old saying is playing out at Oilers camp: Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But how?
How to use that pain to their advantage? How to figure out the answer to squeezing two more goals, one more period of winning hockey, from the 107-game journey that was the 2023-24 season?
“We got to experience a very tough loss. A loss that we’ve been thinking about for the whole summer,” began thoughtful Oilers goalie Stu Skinner, who has never surrendered a goal or lost a game that he did not consider to be a lesson of sorts. “Just being able to experience going through Game 7, with all that energy, all of that noise — just the whole deal of it. It’s pretty amazing.
“Now, if we ever get to experience that again … we already know how it feels. Taking a nap before Game 7, you’re not going to be as worked up as you were this past year. Now you know how to deal with it when it comes to you.
“Even going through the first round, second round … you have a better understanding of how to deal with those types of things when they come: Those nerves and the stresses of the game.”
If the Oilers players have indeed turned the page on defeat — “It’s always going to be with you. Even for guys who are no longer on this team,” said Oilers forward Zach Hyman — then the timing is perfect. You can’t sulk your way into a new season, and think that’s a winning strategy.
But Connor Brown will stop you if you think there are positives to having your heart broken in a Game 7 loss at the Stanley Cup Final.
“I don’t know if you want to necessarily find positivity out of it,” he cautioned. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience, that type of heartbreak. But it’s important to analyze it, learn from it and see it for what it is. I think that’s been the biggest takeaway — to learn from our lessons from the Final and from the playoffs last year.”
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One of the key lessons has already been evident, on a team that learned the hard way that going extra hard in the summer and at captain’s skates won’t help once the season starts. After a short summer, the Oilers glided into camp rather than charging head-first. Fit, but not overworked.
Some key Oilers veterans may play no more than two pre-season games this fall. Because, as Connor McDavid said before camp, “Last year taught us that you can’t win the Cup in September and October, but you can certainly put yourself in a tough spot.”
Not going 2-9-1 to start the season is Job 1 in Edmonton. Winning the Pacific — or even the Western Conference — is Job 2.
“We want to get off to a better start and give ourselves a bit of a buffer,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. “Where, you know, maybe at the end of the season we are leading the division and have home ice on more occasions than not.”
It’s never easy to get away from hockey when you are an NHL star living in Canada — whether you stay in Edmonton or go home to Ontario. There just isn’t the same peace and quiet up here that an Anaheim Duck gets in Manhattan Beach, or a Star gets in Texas.
When people approach Zach Hyman, they’re going to talk hockey. That’s simply how it works.
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“But it’s always positive. It’s never negative in the sense that we didn’t win,” Hyman said. “It’s always, ‘Wow, thank you for giving us such an exciting run and something to cheer for. We’re so super excited about this year.’ That’s really been the message.”
With the first pre-season game set for Sunday, and a Western Conference championship banner set to be raised on Opening Night Oct. 9, team leadership will begin the job of getting this team back to where it wants to go, guided by shades of what went wrong last spring.
“Obviously, it was difficult,” Brown allowed. “We poured our blood, sweat and tears into that season, into that playoff run, and to have it end the way it did. … It’s difficult. But the show goes on.
“It’s kind of fueled us. It’s going to be the source of fuel and a foundation of work for our group to get back there.”
We’ll give the last word to Skinner, the last line of defence.
“It’s going to be really tough, and you’ve got to go through that whole process again, leading up to the Finals, to the playoffs. It’s a long year,” he added.
“The way that we handle that, it’s going to be key for us.”
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