DALLAS -- The Edmonton Oilers always believed they were a championship-caliber team even when sitting at the bottom of the NHL standings.
Despite bottoming out 12 games into the regular season, the Oilers are one win away from the Stanley Cup Final and can book their trip with a victory against the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the Western Conference Final at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Sunday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, truTV, MAX, SN, TVAS).
“It’s a huge opportunity. We set ourselves well to have a chance to win this series at home,” Oilers forward Zach Hyman said Saturday prior to the team departing for Edmonton. “It was a good learning lesson in the previous series how important a Game 5 is, but every team plays their best with their backs against the wall. Dallas is a great team and it’s going to be a big test for us.”
The Oilers were in a similar situation in the second round against the Vancouver Canucks. With the best-of-7 series tied 2-2, they lost Game 5 on the road and had their backs against the wall. They responded with two excellent performances, winning 5-1 and 3-2 in Games 6 and 7, respectively.
“We know how you can get life pretty quickly,” Hyman said. “Momentum usually doesn’t carry over, so Game 6 is going to be a fresh slate. We’re excited it’s in our building. Our fans are going to be loud, and I’m sure it’ll be a tough place to play.”
Hyman acknowledged the toughest part of the job against Dallas has yet to come and it’s going to take Edmonton’s best effort to close out the series after strong performances in Games 4 and 5. The 3-1 victory Friday may have been the Oilers’ most complete game this postseason.
“I think we’re a confident group and we had been even when we started the season poorly. We were still a confident group and we still believed in our team and believed in our goal,” Hyman said. “There’s nothing to be excited about right now. We still have work to do, and I think that’s the mentality. It [was] the mentality going into the year, it’s the mentality now, and nothing’s changed.”
The Oilers entered the season believing they would contend for the Stanley Cup, but a 2-9-1 start dropped them into a tie for last place with the San Jose Sharks, resulting in the firing of coach Jay Woodcroft and assistant Dave Manson one game later. The two were replaced by Kris Knoblauch and Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey on Nov. 12. At the time, few outside their dressing room expected them to still be playing in June.
“I saw a team that was very hard on themselves, was very frustrated,” Knoblauch said. “Things hadn’t been going their way and [it was] a team that was probably trying too hard. That sounds ironic that you can try too hard, but you just get so caught up and you’re not thinking straight and you’re just trying to do too much and when you’re trying to do everything, ultimately you’re doing other people’s jobs and you’re not doing your job as well and everything’s disconnected.”
The slow start and the coaching change had many jumping off the Edmonton bandwagon, but there was always belief among the players they had championship potential. It’s what has carried the Oilers to this point.
“It’s been a heck of a year. There were some very down points,” Hyman said. “We came into the season with extremely high expectations and then hit rock bottom, had a coaching change, and then went through things that if you had told us, we probably wouldn’t have believed you.
“I think our group has a strong belief in each other and we’ve always been our best when we face adversity. I think any team that goes on and has a run usually faces some type of adversity, and we faced ours early. I think we were comfortable in those situations and then faced it in the Vancouver series, faced [it] here, faced it throughout the whole year and we were better for it.”
Edmonton has reached its most confident point. The Oilers believe if they play their best game, they can defeat anyone.
It’s a far cry from six months ago.
“We got off to a bad start, but deep down we all knew how good we could be once we found our confidence and once we got going,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. “And obviously we ended up finding it.”
Should Edmonton advance, it would face the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup. Florida advanced to the Cup Final for the second straight season with a 2-1 victory against the New York Rangers in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final on Saturday.
“I think our mindset and the belief we have in each other. The belief we have in our group, when we get to our game, the more often and longer we get to it, it’s really dangerous and it’s really, really good,” Draisaitl said. “That being said, there are a lot of teams that have that game, I just think the trust and the belief we have in each other is really high.”
