EDMONTON — As the sliding doors open and the Edmonton Oilers enter their dressing room, five miniature replica Stanley Cups illuminated by pot lights rest on a ledge in front of a navy-blue backdrop.
The small trophies, previously placed symmetrically along a ledge, have been bumped over to the left throughout training camp with a big gap on the far end.
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Veteran forward Adam Henrique noticed the shuffle right away, and the symbolism of it immediately brought a smile to his face.
“There’s a little more room on one side,” he said, beaming. “I do like it. It’s those little reminders. That’s what we play for.”
There’s a new take on the Cup-or-bust mentality that permeated the team last season. Now it’s all about unfinished business for the Oilers after coming one victory short of winning it all.
The empty space spells out the task at hand for the Oilers over the next nine months, starting with Wednesday when they host the Winnipeg Jets in the season opener.
“It’s preparing for something,” defenceman Mattias Ekholm said. “When you’re that close and you have a big chunk of the team left, why would you sell yourself for anything short?”
Oilers players seem to be oblivious about who made the alterations to the five Cups or are playing coy. No one interviewed for this piece knew who moved them or, at least, was willing to share.
The consistent message is the revised positioning of the hardware hasn’t even come up as a topic of discussion because they know what the objective is anyway.
“It’s no secret that our goal is to win,” winger Connor Brown said. “We have lofty goals for ourselves. It’s important for us to stay connected to the process of what makes us a good team.”
The Oilers have a veteran roster stacked with stars. They’re the Stanley Cup favourites.
Throw in the team’s playoff track record over the last three years — six series wins, and one victory shy of a title in June — and the regular season has almost an immaterial feeling to it. How the Oilers fare in the spring is how the upcoming campaign will be defined.
Instead, the main point of the regular season is setting them up for postseason success.
The Oilers had a dreadful start last season, a 2-9-1 record through their first 12 games that cost coaches Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson their jobs. They overcame that, but there was still a cost.
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“It’s great to be in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, but (because of) eight months earlier that could have been on home ice,” Ekholm said. “That final series could have been a completely different thing.
“It really does matter early on — and that’s something that we’ve learned the hard way. Hopefully, we’ve learned that lesson to know that we can’t take this lightly. We can’t think things are going to come easy — because they won’t.”
Added Henrique: “The team knows what’s at stake, and what’s at stake early. You want to set yourself up to be in a good position.”
A year ago, the Oilers were so fixated on bowing out to Vegas — a loss they felt shouldn’t have happened — that they were already looking ahead to the playoffs. As part of a myriad of issues early last season, a lack of focus was one of them.
“You learn from previous mistakes,” Connor McDavid said. “You can’t start from the Stanley Cup back. You’ve got to work (from) Day 1 out and work towards that. I thought that was a good lesson for our group.
“I think the group’s in a good headspace and the group is understanding that we’ve got to go up a couple levels here.”
The Oilers are determined not to let that thinking from the start of last season creep in again.
“The disappointment was different when you lose in the second round compared to when you lose in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final,” Ekholm said. “Now, it’s more so understanding what we did good in that run to be in that position and to keep that momentum going this year.”
Ekholm and Henrique are two Oilers who’ve lost in the Stanley Cup Final before — the former in 2017 with Nashville and the latter in 2012 with New Jersey.
Adam Henrique joined the Oilers at the deadline last season and made his mark in the playoffs. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Henrique, who was in Anaheim last fall before joining the Oilers via trade in March, believes this team has done as good a job of moving on as possible.
“It doesn’t feel like there’s lingering effects,” he said. “But there is. Stuff like that sticks with you forever. I’ve been there in the past and it doesn’t change. But you have to be able to turn the page, move forward and refocus, and get ready to do it again.
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“The mood and the atmosphere on the team is in a good spot. But underlying that mentality is that everybody knows what we need to do.”
Of course, it wasn’t just last season that the Oilers have had to push past a significant stretch of poor results in recent memory. They were 10-10 through the first 20 games of the 2022-23 campaign and 18-15-2 when play paused for the December holiday break. A season prior, they started 5-0 and 16-5 but came crashing back to Earth by winning just two of their next 15 games — which eventually led to coaches Dave Tippett and Jim Playfair getting fired.
The Oilers have found their footing in each of the last three seasons, finishing second in the Pacific Division each time.
As goaltender Stuart Skinner said Monday, there will inevitably be dips again this season. It’s all about getting out of those valleys quicker and with less damage in the standings.
“There’s going to be ups and downs through the season,” Henrique said. “But with a veteran group, the team knows how to handle those sorts of things, and we’ll be able to handle that within.”
A more consistent regular season can only help the cause of the Oilers winning their first Stanley Cup since the organization’s heyday almost four decades ago.
There’s an area waiting to be filled for that sixth silver chalice, one for this generation of players and fans to relish.
“The Oilers are an iconic franchise, starting with Wayne (Gretzky) back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and what we built as a team,” said assistant coach Paul Coffey, a Hall of Fame defenceman with his name on the first three of those titles spanning from 1984 to 1990. “But it’s time to forget about all that.”
The time is now for this era of the Oilers — and the players are already alerted of that every day in their dressing room. Not that they need the reminder.
“There’s space for one more,” defenceman Brett Kulak said. “We’ll keep moving them as far left as we need to do to make some more room.
“You see it every morning you walk in, and that’s the goal.”
(Top photo by Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Daniel Nugent-Bowman is a staff writer who covers the Edmonton Oilers for The Athletic. Daniel has written about hockey for Sportsnet, The Hockey News, Yahoo Canada Sports and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. Follow Daniel on Twitter @DNBsports
