Edmonton Oilers hope to rebound after woeful road trip
Many teams in the National Hockey League have been struggling greatly, but no team has struggled like the Edmonton Oilers.
The team is coming off of losses to the New York Rangers (8-2), Carolina Hurricanes (7-1), Detroit Red Wings (6-2), and the New Jersey Devils (4-3). During their past few road games, the
team has been outscored by a margin of 25-8 by opposing teams.
Despite the string of defeats, Oliers head coach Tom Renney believes that his team has the ability to rebound and play better.
“There comes a point where there are diminishing returns,” Renney told
The Canadian Press. “If you’re playing well and really working hard to execute, it makes it easier to identify the good things we’re doing and (say), ‘We've got to shore this up,’ so the learning curve becomes shorter.
“If there’s an inability to get your head around that and do what we have to do to be successful, you can only learn from losing so much. After a point, it’s useless.”
The fact that the team’s record currently stands at 4-9-3 is not what concerns Renney and the Oilers’ coaching staff. Their primary concern is how the team got that record, and what can
be done to turn things around.
Oilers defenceman Ryan Whitney says that the blowouts that the team suffered in their recent games have been a massive step backwards for them.
“If you’re going to lose, you want to lose 3-2 or 4-3, things like that,” Whitney said. “When you’re getting blown out, there’s a huge difference from maybe being in a game and losing
late to a really good team.”
“You can take away good things from that. Blowouts? That’s just like a step backward. There’s a big difference between being competitive and losing when you have no chance.”
Despite the team’s problems, centre Sam Gagner says that the most important thing for the Oilers to do is focus on improving every day.
“It’s hard to be great every night, but as a unit we’re trying to get to that point,” Gagner said. “At the end of the day, those losses are zero points whether they’re 8-2 or 3-2. We’ve
got to focus on getting better every day.”
The Oilers will play their next game at home on Wednesday 17 November, where they will face the Chicago Blackhawks.
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