NO CAPTAIN, MORE URGENCY
The loss of McDavid’s services for up to two weeks is only increasing the work within the Oilers locker room toward rectifying what the players and coaches already know to be the case through their first five games of the 2023-24 regular season:
The intensity and urgency in their game need to go up.
“I don't know if it makes it easier, but I think the urgency can be ramped up a little bit,” Kane said “I think guys want to do that regardless. He was one of those guys that did that and leads by example, so we're trying to get better each and every day and obviously, we need to have a better five-game segment than we did these past five games.”
The Oilers are in the midst of their slowest start to a season since 2017-18 with a 1-3-1 record in their first five games, while allowing a league-leading 13 high-danger goals against. They're also yet to score a third-period goal this season – a trend that continued in Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Winnipeg – and are being outscored 5-0 in the period so far this campaign.
Upon analysis, the Oilers saw positive developments in the way they generated chances as a product of the daily business they’ve worked to satisfy between games during practices and video sessions, but still understand they're not a finished product as a group – especially without their captain.
“I think something that we talked about was putting the puck on net from the point a little bit more, and I thought the D men have been doing a really good job of that the last few games,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “It comes down to the forwards getting to the net and getting those second, third opportunities and battling away. I think last game we did a good job of that, but we just couldn't find any.
“It's continuing to work on that. It's finding each other, building that chemistry again and I think we're a confident team that we can get back to our offensive ways."
