From horrid to torrid, Edmonton Oilers have come a long way

Watching the Edmonton Oilers play their final home game of the regular season Monday, it’s hard to imagine this is the same team we saw in their first home game of the regular season.

From last in the league to second in the division. From Jay Woodcroft to Kris Knoblauch. From Jack Campbell to Calvin Pickard. From underachievers to contenders. From hating Corey Perry to being glad he’s here. 

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What a long, strange trip it’s been.

“It’s been a wild ride,” said Connor McDavid, who scored on the first shift of his first game back, then hit his milestone 100th assist in the second period of Monday’s 9-2 rout of the San Jose Sharks.

“We started out really low, then had a real high there in the middle with the win streak and getting ourselves back in play, and here we are about to host a playoff series.

“It’s a credit to everyone in this room, the resilience of this group and everybody sticking together and finding a way to get it done. That’s what it really came down to.”

The Oilers closed out the regular season in style, scoring four goals in the first period (McDavid, Adam Henrique, Warren Foegele and Dylan Holloway), five more in the second (Foegele, Perry, Cody Ceci, Evan Bouchard and Zach Hyman) and

The cherry on top was McDavid hitting the milestone at home, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr as the only players to ever reach 100 assists.

“It means a lot,” said McDavid, who set up Hyman for Edmonton’s ninth goal of the game. “Those three are obviously three of the greatest players to ever play. To share a little something with them, it means a lot to me. It’s been a different type of year, but everybody stuck with it and we’ve put ourselves in a good spot heading into when it matters most.”

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Hyman is thrilled that he got to be a part of the rare achievement.

“It’s special to be a part of that moment,” he said. “Even though it was the ninth goal it doesn’t matter, that’s just a historic moment, a milestone that only three other guys have gotten to and those three other guys are Hall of Fame, once in-a-lifetime players.

“To be in that kind of company is pretty cool and special and it doesn’t happen often. I think he deserved to have his moment there regardless of what the score there.”

The nine-goal outburst and standing ovations on Fan Appreciation Night are miles away from the mood on opening night.

After their first home game of the season, the Oilers were 0-2 and had been outscored 12-4. And from there, it only got worse. They lost their first five games at Roger Place and didn’t win there until Nov. 13, the first game after their coach got fired.

“We’ve come through some adversity,” said defenceman Vincent Desharnais. “It’s good for a team to go through that. Obviously, it wasn’t the start we wanted but we learned a lot from it. We battled back hard.”

Since then, they’ve gone 27-5-3 at home, including a recent 10-0-2 run, for their best home ice record since 1988. Overall, they had an eight-game winning streak in December, a 16-game winning streak in January and went from a long shot to make the playoffs to a legitimate contender again.

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“We kept our composure,” said Desharnais. “The biggest thing was to shut down all distractions and focus on us.

“And we got out of it together. We stuck with each other and tried to stay as positive as possible. It wasn’t one player who did it by himself, it was all 23 guys and that is going to carry us through the playoffs.”

Speaking of playoffs, the Oilers have two road games left in the season — the end of their six-games-in-nine-nights stretch —  and while it would be nice to finish the season on a roll, McDavid says it’s not that big a deal.

They finished last season on a 14-0-1 rampage last year and lost home ice advantage in the first game in the first game of the playoffs and ran out of gas in the second round.

“We were playing really, really good hockey last year going into the playoffs and it doesn’t really… it matters, I guess, but at the end of the day it (playoffs) is a different beast,” said McDavid. “It’s a different animal. And there is always a little bit of time off so there’s no that much momentum that carries over.

“We want guys to be playing their best hockey, we want guys to be feeling their best and rested and healthy. That’s the ultimate goal.”

Next time the Oilers play here, everything will be on another level.

“It’s fun, exciting to play in front of this crowd,” said Henrique. “You see it around the city, everybody is so passionate about it. I’ve watched in the past and even on TV you can see it and you can kind of feel that emotion in the building.

“To be out there on the ice you definitely feel it as a player, it’s definitely exciting to be an Oiler.”

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