There was a time, not so long ago, that the Edmonton Oilers would roll into Rogers Place expecting their skill to carry them through inferior opponents. Show up, let McDavid and Draisaitl do their thing, collect two points, move on.
Those days are not these days.
The first period against Utah was a mess. Turnovers everywhere. No pressure. Utah getting easy looks. The kind of hockey that’s plagued Edmonton for stretches this season—showing up expecting talent alone to win games. Then came the intermission.
“Everybody just thought enough is enough,” began Mattais Ekholm. “Kudos to us we responded in the second period and found our game, but that has to be our standard moving forward. The league is just too good.”
Utah, despite where they sit in the standings, is far from an elite team. Still, they’re good enough to capitalize when handed opportunities and dance around players taking every other shift off.
One period and sixteen turnovers later, and they proved it.
“I don’t know what the players had talked about, but I know from the coaching staff, our message was, we have to work,” cemented Kris Knoblauch. “We can’t come and just show up and think our skill is going to take over and win us hockey games. We turned over the puck 16 times. You’re probably looking at maybe two or three a period. Ideally, from a coach’s standpoint, it’d be zero. But we turned it over 16 times on the attack, which didn’t allow us to get any offence. Didn’t allow us to pressure them.
“It was really easy for them, and we have to defend instead.”
Sixteen turnovers. No offensive zone time. Utah having an easy night until the Oilers decided to play hockey. But no theatrics from Knoblauch. No table-pounding. Just a calm, direct message about work and execution.
“He talks in between (periods), just gives us a little something during intermission,” explained Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “You know, Knobber, his demeanour is pretty calm most of the time, but obviously, in certain situations…
“But we responded well, and he wasn’t screaming at us by any means. But obviously, we needed to be better, and we showed up in the second and the third.”
The players got it.
The response in the second and third periods was what this team has been capable of all along. Structure. Pressure. Scoring. A version of the Edmonton Oilers that makes opponents work for everything instead of gifting them chances off turnovers.
The Oilers have their best start in years, even with the inconsistency. But they know they can’t keep spotting opponents the first period and grinding back.
“Maybe everybody needs to take a deep breath every once in a while. Since I’ve been here, this is our best start, so great, I guess,” joked (?) Ekholn. “(But) we want to start better. As long as we get into the playoffs, I’m happy, but obviously we want to have a better start.”
Fair enough. The results are there, even if the process has been shaky.
“There’s been better teams than us that have played worse,” continued Ekholm. “But to be honest, this is only one game; we have to look forward.”
One game. One response to a terrible first period. That’s the test moving forward—can they maintain this execution without needing intermission wake-up calls first?
When performance has been uneven, you cling to the positives. You trumpet your resilience. The Oilers did both against Utah.
The second and third periods showed what happens when this team commits to doing things right. No more turnovers. Offensive pressure. Utah not getting easy looks anymore because Edmonton stopped giving them away.
But the message resonates: enough is enough. This has to be the standard. The league is too good to give away periods. Utah was happy to take advantage in the first. Better teams will punish those mistakes even harder.
The conversations between periods—players holding each other accountable, Knoblauch delivering his calm but pointed message about work—resulted in 40 minutes of the hockey the Oilers need to play consistently.
Not just when trailing. Not just when desperation sets in. But from puck drop, for 60 minutes, every game.
“The league is just too good,” Ekholm said, and truer words haven’t been spoken in the Oilers’ room all season.
Now they need to prove it wasn’t just a one-night flash of brilliance, but the beginning of the consistent, grinding, detail-oriented hockey that wins in October—and April.
Enough is enough.
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