EDMONTON --- Overcoming another stellar performance from St. Louis netminder Jaroslav Halak, a Taylor Hall breakaway snipe 23 seconds into overtime boosted the Oilers to a 2-1 victory last night in Edmonton at Rexall Place. The OT winner, Hall’s 3rd goal of the week, ran the Oiler winning streak to a season-high 4 games, including three this week alone. The finisher can be seen here:
But the story of the week went far deeper than the exploits of the NHL’s newest phenom and his club’s winning ways – it was about their battle together against adversity.
If someone hasn’t been watching the Oilers regularly this year, they’d probably have a look at the Oiler’s 10-12-4 record, see that 4 wins came in the last week and think to themselves just one word – fluke. They may even take a glance at Taylor Hall’s 9-6-15 line and think another word – bust. But they’d all be wrong. Very, very wrong.
See, folks, this is how a team is built. We may have forgotten what one of those is these days, given the media focus on individuals from Hall himself all the way up to LeBron James, but the 2010-11 Oilers are doing their best to remind us.
The season started out terribly for the young club and Coach Tom Renney, going 4-14 to start the season. Everyone was wondering if the kids Kevin Lowe drafted deserved all the hype they were getting. From Jordan Eberle to Sam Gagner and especially Taylor, we just weren’t seeing the “magic” we’d been sold on. After all, we fans are a fickle bunch.
Since then though, things have changed gears a bit. Rather than folding like a cheap suit, the kids dug deeper. They fought harder for pucks, took each shift a bit more seriously and learned the 60 minutes – not 57, 58, or 59 – was the length of an NHL hockey game. Rather than bemoaning their youth, the franchise has embraced it. And in the long run, we will love them for it.
Plain and simple, what the Oilers are doing is giving us a reason to be proud. In the era of big name free agents and stars being shipped to the highest bidder, the Oilers have decided to do it the old school way. They draft and they develop their players as one. They teach them to lean on each other, not compete with each other. And maybe that’s why so many of these patchwork superstar teams never work out – they never get the chance to really know each other.
