Oilers boast talent needed for playoff run, but know long season lies ahead

EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers officially began training camp Wednesday, but a lot of the talk in the Alberta capital is already focused on what the team is going to be doing in April.

After getting to the Western Conference final this past season, expectations are high for a team that has arguably the best group of top-line forwards in the league, including Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evander Kane, Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The Oilers have upgraded the netminding position with the signing for former Maple Leaf Jack Campbell.

But, while it’s easy for talk-radio callers and pundits to look past the regular season and towards the playoffs, history tells us otherwise.

In 2021, the Vegas Golden Knights and New York Islanders were the losing conference finalists. The Montreal Canadiens lost the Stanley Cup final. All three missed the playoffs in 2021-22.

And some of the Oilers on the roster still think about what happened after the team made great strides and got to the second round of the playoffs in 2017 before they were eliminated by the Anaheim Ducks in seven games. Great expectations were placed on the Oilers — and they missed the playoffs the next two seasons. It took until this past campaign for them to actually win a playoff round.

“It’s not how it works in sports,” Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse, thinking back to the lessons of ‘17. “You have to earn it, and we didn’t earn it at all.

“Obviously, if you look on paper, the additions we’ve made, the guys that came back, re-signed, and some of the younger players taking steps in their game, for sure people are going to say we’re a better team now than we were, sitting at the end of the season. But, that’s paper. The real test comes when the puck drops on