BLOG: Oilers making the most of extra time off before Round 2

EDMONTON, AB – Leave the 'rest' to us, and take your sweet time while you're at it.

The Edmonton Oilers are using the time that's been afforded to them in between their first-round victory over the Los Angeles Kings and the start of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to get some extra rest and give players like Darnell Nurse a chance to fit some fortuitous family time into his busy post-season schedule.

With a few extra days for the Oilers to recuperate from their five-game victory over the Kings in Round 1, Darnell will be able to sit in the stands alongside the extended Nurse family at Rogers Place to watch his younger sister Kia compete with the Los Angeles Sparks against the Seattle Storm in the WNBA Canada Game at Rogers Place on Saturday night.

“It'll be exciting to have my sister here,” he said following Friday’s practice at the Downtown Community Arena. “They don't get in until late tonight, but my parents are coming in too and it's a lot of fun to see her do her craft at the highest level.

“It'll be cool to have her in Edmonton.”

Edmonton didn't know who their opponent would be in the second round until later Friday evening, with Vancouver confirmed to be that team after their 1-0 win over Nashville, but the opportunity for Darnell to watch his younger sister play in Saturday’s showcase down in ICE District will work out perfectly before they need to take off to the West Coast ahead of Game 1 sometime early next week.

The Oilers practiced at the Downtown Community Arena on Friday with the ice at Rogers Place already covered up by hardwood for the WNBA exhibition, which made it feel a lot like his humble upbringing in Hamilton going from court to court with his sisters Tamika and Kia – who both played at the NCAA level.

“Growing up, all we did was spend time at basketball gyms,” he said. “If I wasn't at my hockey practice, I was following around my big sister with my little sister at the gyms. We were surrounded by basketball her whole life, so it was a lot of fun – especially when we would just sit around the family table and she would break down games and whatnot.”

It’s an opportunistic chance for Darnell to reconnect with Kia, having been marred in the trenches of a long NHL campaign and unable to watch many of his younger sister’s games live.

“I’m very proud as a brother. Very inspiring,” he said. “Honestly, she's had so many different feats and accomplishments in her career and it continuously drives me to do the things I want to do.”

Right now, the Oilers are enjoying a well-deserved physical and mental reset as they await the Canucks or Predators in the next round, with players and coaches saying they’ll be keeping an eye on their Game 6 matchup tonight at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Nurse added that maximizing their recovery during this actionless stretch is the most important and that forming a game plan for whoever their opponents are in Round 2 will come when that’s all done and dusted in the coming days.

“When you get into this situation, it's the physical part of it in preparing your body for the next round,” Nurse said. “When you get your pre-scout before, I think there's also an element of not going too far in or diving too far into the game trying to nitpick every single tendency or every single thing that could happen in a game.

“Just go out there and play. I think that our team is the best when we have a little flow to our game and our reading and reacting, so there's that balance there.”

The Oilers came out for Friday’s practice at the DCA wanting to keep that flow going in the right direction, putting in a strong practice that didn’t feature any tactical adjustments focused on any one of their two potential Round 2 opponents. Friday was also a chance to give maintenance days to Evander Kane and Adam Henrique, who Head Coach Kris Knoblauch says are expected to be on the ice before Game 1 of their next series.

“We do have some time to give our guys some time to recover,” he said. “We’ve got a couple days to see where we're at. We’re probably looking at starting [the next round] Tuesday, so we'll be on the ice a couple days, but we're not going to be on the ice every single day.

“We'll hopefully have time to work on some things, but guys will recover and be ready as close to 100 percent as possible when that second round starts.”

The focus was on physical recovery on Friday, but regardless if they begin on the road in Vancouver or at home against Nashville for Round 2, Game 1, Coach Knoblauch says they’ve already received the scouting reports on both and are prepared to adjust accordingly when that decision is made.

The coaching staffs have done their preparation, but they’re not prepared yet to introduce it to the players out of fear of messing with the flow established in the dressing room right now.

“If we wait until the series is done, there's just not enough time,” Knoblauch said of the scouting reports.

“With the players, we will wait. We won't talk about either team until we know who we're playing, and there are some tendencies that both teams have. Their systems are similar in some aspects. We can work on those things. We can say this is what we want to do because no matter who we are playing, this is our goal, but as for showing Vancouver's offensive zone face-offs or Nashville's forecheck or something like that, we'll wait till we know who we're playing.”