To say the Edmonton Oilers were never close to winning a Stanley Cup is misleading and unfair. Yes, they have taken steps backward, but to make a comment like that without facts to back it up is uncalled for. However, to make back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances means they were close enough to win.
Winning two overtime games to get to Game 6 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final has to mean something. We all know Edmonton’s rally from a 3-0 deficit in the 2024 Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers to force Game 7, where they came up one goal short as they fell by a score of 2-1. So when a team loses by one goal means they were close to winning.
Leon Draisaitl Said Nothing Wrong About the Edmonton Oilers Play
But everyone knew this year that it was going to be hard, not only for the Panthers to get back to the Stanley Cup Final, but for the Oilers as well. Edmonton had a hard enough time making the playoffs. As Leon Draisaitl noted, the Oilers have gone in the wrong direction.
“Yes, I am concerned about that. And a little bit of that leads into obviously us players. Like I said before, we didn’t do a good enough job of properly winning games,” Draisaitl said when asked if he was concerned the team was heading in the wrong direction. “And I don’t like using the terminology of taking the regular season seriously, because we do. We go into every game, and we try to do it right. We say the right things.
But I think you really have to in the regular season, form these moments, you have to get comfortable in these moments. And we didn’t do that this year, and it ended up showing in the first round here. So, but yes, I am concerned, because we’re not trending in the right direction. We’ve taken big steps backwards, and we’ve got to get a grip of this and head back in the right direction.”
Draisaitl has been open and honest all season about how he feels the team has been performing. A common theme among the players was that the team needs to improve. Everyone has to be better from top to bottom. The mindset has to change.
What to make of Leon Draisaitl’s and Connor McDavid Comments?
As Connor McDavid said following Game 6 of the First Round series against the Anaheim Ducks, the team was just average. He backed up those comments on Saturday, along with Draisaitl’s, saying the team took a step back.
“Yeah, I feel the same way. It’s only a couple days ago I made those comments. Obviously, I feel the same way I did a couple of days ago,” McDavid said when asked if the team took a step back and if he felt the same way about the team being average. “And agree with Leon that the organization as a whole is taking a step back. And that starts with me, starts with Leon. We all can be better. We all need to be better.”
Again, it is hard to make the Stanley Cup Final three years in a row. While the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning have accomplished that feat, everything has to go right, and the team needs to be peaking at the right time. The Oilers just didn’t have the depth they had years ago to make that kind of run.
Can Management Improve the Edmonton Oilers Around Connor McDavid
Whether the team wants to admit it or not, they have played a lot of hockey since 2022. The path back to the Stanley Cup Final is there, but they all have to buy in. As Kris Knoblauch noted, there needs to be bigger roles for other players on the team. It can’t be a three or four-man team anymore. Look at the Colorado Avalanche when they won the depth they had.
The Edmonton Oilers had that depth in 2024 with Evander Kane, Corey Perry, Ryan McLeod, Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway, Vincent Desharnais, Cody Ceci, and Warren Foegele. Leon Draisaitl called the 2024 Edmonton Oilers the best team they had.
But who is at fault for the lack of depth on the team now? Point to management and how things were handled at the end of the 2024 season. So, for the Edmonton Oilers to get back to where they want to be, the team has to improve and take the regular season seriously moving forward, find an identity that suits their style of play, and find success.
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