Oilers coach steadfast in belief second-to-last-place team will round into dominant form

Edmonton Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft watches the game unfold against the Nashville Predators during third period NHL action in Edmonton on Nov. 4, 2023. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

The brave faces that've been present for most Edmonton Oilers games this season — 80 per cent of them to be exact, as through 10 games, the National Hockey League squad has won just two — remained present Sunday after practice.

Head coach Jay Woodcroft and star centre Leon Draisaitl both talked of sticking with the process, much as they and other Oilers players have said win or lose.

"Win a game, don't win a game, our medicine is the same. We come to work the next day, we give our players something that they can work on or hang their hat on," Woodcroft said to media assembled following the Oilers' practice on Sunday, a day after losing 5-2 to the Nashville Predators on home ice to drop the Oilers' record to 2-7-1, good for 31st overall in the NHL.

"Obviously, the first 10-game segment didn't go the way we wanted it to. Yesterday didn't go the way we wanted to. But the way we approached today was to get better, and that's win or lose. That's our mindset."

When asked how he can maintain a positive outlook when the results have been mostly losses, Woodcroft said he and his staff want to determine what happened 'clearly' when they go back and look at what occurred in a game.

"You want to make sure that your process is correct," Woodcroft said.

"If you take care of process and your people are in the right mindset, usually, the product takes care of itself or results take care of themselves. Right now, we haven't done that long enough, hard enough or collectively well enough, and when you don't do that, you're sitting with the record that we (have.) Do we believe we're better than that? Yes, we are."

Draisaitl, who has scored six assists in his last seven games after starting the season with four goals and seven points, "no one" in the Oilers dressing room has much confidence as they prepared to travel to Vancouver for a Monday game against the Canucks.

"That starts at the top," said Draisaitl, who finished second in NHL scoring with 128 points, 52 of them goals, behind teammate Connor McDavid and his 153 points. "We know that we can be an awful lot better, and so does the bottom part of our lineup. It's a group effort that's not getting it done right now, so we're going to have to figure it out."

For all the talk of the Oilers figuring out how to play in a different defensive system and the multiple mental mistakes — "It is just death by a thousand cuts, that is what it feels like," McDavid said Saturday following the loss to Nashville. "One mistake and it costs us and another little mistake and it just snowballs” — that have led to eight losses, seven in regulation, in their first 10 games, Woodcroft said he believes the players have more to show.

I just think there's more there from the group," he said. "Actually, we're relentless in trying to cultivate the next solution and find the next answer. We are leaving no stone unturned. And for us, we believe we're better than our record shows. But in the end we got to go out tomorrow night and we have to prove it."

HAMBLIN RECALLED FROM AHL

The Oilers announced Sunday evening they have brought forward James Hamblin up from their American Hockey League affiliate in Bakersfield, Calif., on an emergency basis.

Hamblin, an Edmonton native, has scored three goals and two assists in six games with the AHL Condors this season.

The 24-year-old played 10 games with the Oilers in 2022-23.