EDMONTON, Alberta — Mike Smith mentioned it unprompted on Sunday night in the minutes after Game 3, the words of a 40-year-old goalie who has seen it all.
The Oilers were conducting their postgame press conference, as usual, in the Hall of Fame Room at Rogers Place — a shiny shrine that honors Edmonton’s glory years.
The room’s 20-foot-high glass windows look out to 104th Ave, where fans were four-deep to get a view of their heroes. The scene was one of ecstasy for Edmonton — still daylight out on a warm Sunday of the May 24 long weekend, after the Oilers just pummelled their archrivals to take a 2-1 series lead in the Battle of Alberta.
Outside, in sight of the players at the podium, a well-lubricated fan rode the Stanley Cup atop Wayne Gretzky’s bronze statue like a bull — as if the Oilers had just won their sixth in franchise history.
Smith knew the Oilers were less than halfway there, with only 10 of the 16 required wins in their pocket, and not another guaranteed.
“I think we learned a valuable lesson last series in Round 1,” Smith said, without being asked. “I think we played our worst game in Game 4. We want to learn a lesson from that and not let that happen again.”
Smith set the tone, a full 48 hours ahead of Game 4.
The Oilers are expecting the Calgary Flames’ best punch on Tuesday night. Everyone is expecting that. This is a series of two teams going head-to-head, not one, even though Connor McDavid gives the Oilers an aura of invincibility — and the Flames have their moment to make a statement of their own.
Edmonton has the opportunity to put a skate to the throat of its provincial rival and grab a 3-1 series stranglehold and head back to Calgary on the brink of a first Western Conference Final berth since 2006.
Will they find the killer instinct?
It was missing in the first round against Los Angeles. After pounding the undermanned Kings by a combined 14-2 margin in Games 2 and 3, the Oilers arrived for Game 4 with the opportunity to make for a short series, and they showed up to the rink like they spent the off-day on the beach.
They survived, by the grace of McJesus, who took his game to another planet to avoid yet another first-round failure.
The lesson? The Oilers aren’t good enough, aren’t deep enough yet, to let teams off the hook. Most teams don’t survive in the Stanley Cup Playoffs long enough to right their wrong in the same spring.
They seem to know it.
“I feel like we should actually be grateful for last round and the ups and downs of it,” defenseman Tyson Barrie said Monday. “It can take teams a full year to learn a lesson like we did last round. We just know it’s far from over.
“We have a great opportunity here to take a big step and a big lead. The last time we had that opportunity, we weren’t really even close to grabbing it.”
There is a maturity that is a prerequisite to lifting Lord Stanley’s mug. This Oilers core has been on a journey full of fits and starts, one that started in 2017 and has been a roller-coaster of heartbreak, failure, trades and firings.
They’ve been through a lot. Some of the faces have changed, some have gone and some have returned.
But they showed that they didn’t quite learn the lesson last time around.
“We didn’t love how we played Game 4 in LA,” coach Jay Woodcroft said. “The difference is we’re at home.”
The difference is they’re also playing in the Battle of Alberta. The old boys, the legends who hung banners and built that Hall of Fame Room, said you were only judged on how you stack up against the Flames.
And the Flames are much better than the Kings.
“I think we’re maturing as a team,” Leon Draisaitl said. “We’ve gotten older, we’ve grown up together, so we’re learning that the playoffs are an up and down ride.”
Their coach, Woodcroft, was on the bench in 2017 as an assistant to Todd McLellan. He knows the core players and helped develop much of the supporting cast in AHL Bakersfield. Woodcroft has pushed his group to “return to our emotional baseline” in messaging, and he says he has seen growth.
“Let’s be honest, the regular season – there were some trials and tribulations for this team,” Woodcroft said. “What I saw was a hardening of the group, a group coming together, and concentrating on how to solve problems and to come up with solutions. When [assistant] Dave [Manson] and I came up, we found a group that was open to solutions and we’ve slowly built our game.”
Woodcroft vowed the Oilers haven’t played their best game yet this series.
We know the Flames haven’t. Tuesday night is where the rubber meets the road in this Highway 2 collision.
The Oilers have said all the right things, recognizing the lesson. Now we’ll see whether they’ve actually learned it.
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