BLOG: Oilers focused on not thinking too far beyond the regular season

EDMONTON, AB – On the eve of another NHL season – one that will bring its unique challenges and represent a clean slate for all 32 teams – the Edmonton Oilers are prepared to make sure they don’t get too far ahead of themselves this time around.

“We had a great practice today, but we need to reset and have a great game tomorrow, then onto the next game,” Zach Hyman said on Monday at Rogers Place. “We've got caught in the past looking too far ahead, and you can't do that. You have to establish yourself first as a great regular-season team before thinking about the playoffs."

Last year’s first-round postseason exit was a necessary reminder for the Oilers entering a new year that nothing in this League is guaranteed.

After back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Finals the previous two years, they had strong ambitions in September to return – only for their bid for another berth in the championship to be stopped in its tracks at the first hurdle in April.

“I don't think you tackle every year,” Hyman said. “You go in, and you can't tackle the Finals because you're not in the finals. You can't tackle the Stanley Cup because you're not even there. We got to play 84 games, so we’ve got to tackle game one, and that's the mindset.”

Oilers players who were here for the two straight trips to the Cup Final admitted at Training Camp that last year’s regular season was taken for granted a little bit too much in the locker room, thinking they needed to conserve energy for the playoffs.

In reality, the Oilers were coming off their second straight Final appearance, so by the time the playoffs began, their energy levels were already critically low before injuries started to pile up and make things harder. 

The club never quite found their complete game in the regular season, losing out in six games to the Anaheim Ducks in the first round.

This season, their focus is firmly on the next game and nowhere else, because there’s no point in worrying beyond the regular season when there are 84 games in between to decide if you're even able to compete in the playoffs.

“As a team, we want to win the division. We haven't done that since I've been here, so that's a goal, right? Even then, that’s too forward-looking," Hyman said."Have a good first game, have a good second game, and keep building what we want to look like and who we want to be. That takes a season to do. You can't just say we're ready to win a Cup right now. You’ve got to go through the process.”

The Oilers hope to channel that approach into a strong start to the campaign, having gone 6-6-4 in their first 14 games last season and never really getting their game in order to make another deep run in the playoffs. 

Edmonton's best start in recent seasons was 2021-22, when they started 12-4-0 en route to a berth in the Western Conference Final later that campaign.

More rest from a longer summer than they expected, along with new faces in the locker room and new tactics under a new coaching staff led by Head Coach Mike Babcock, has the group feeling energized for the task of starting the season the right way when the Vancouver Canucks visit Rogers Place on Tuesday night for their season opener.

"Every year, you say the same things," Hyman said. "You want to have a great start; you want to go into the year with a great start. The years we haven't had good starts, I said the same thing about wanting to have a great start.  At the end of the day, you've got to go out and do it.

"We're rested and we're ready to go. We're excited.  We've got a new coach, new systems and the same core guys, with a bunch of new pieces that are going to help."