McDavid says Edmonton Oilers might be down but they’re far from out

The Edmonton Oilers are banged up and short-staffed, fighting injuries and illness, struggling to even ice a full lineup, and still haven’t secured a playoff spot with four games left in the season.

No team that started the year as a Stanley Cup contender wants to be finishing the stretch drive like this — clouded in uncertainty about the health of its core players. But there they are, still without Leon Draisaitl, Mattias Ekholm, Stuart Skinner, Trent Frederic, Evander Kane and now Jake Walman, who was a late scratch Wednesday. Throw in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who is out with the flu, and the Oilers are a mess.

But a good mess, according to the Oilers captain.

“It would be great to have our full lineup in and get everybody up and running together and rolling like a big machine, but obviously that’s not the case,” said McDavid, who came back a game early Wednesday because the Oilers only had 11 forwards and five defencemen healthy for St. Louis.

“It falls on everybody as individuals to make sure they’re doing whatever they’ve got to do to be ready come that opening game.”

Connor Brown, who scored two goals in Edmonton’s 4-3 win over the Blues, wants to remind everyone that there is a big difference between being down and being out. There is no question the Oilers are a little down right now, but Brown is in the room, sees how the injured players are recovering and is still confident this team can go on a long playoff run.

“Extremely confident,” he said, without a moment of hesitation. “The level of belief is extremely high in our group. We’ve got a lot of dogs and guys that are hungry. Four games left, we have to punch our ticket still and continue to work.”

Edmonton’s magic number is one — one more point, or one more Calgary Flames loss, and they clinch for the sixth year in a row. Clinch what remains to be seen, though.

How does a team that’s missing seven players ready itself for a hard-fought battle with the Los Angeles Kings that begins in just over a week?

“It falls on everybody as individuals,” said McDavid. “I know I’m doing everything I can and I see guys around here doing everything they can. It’s obviously not ideal timing but we’re a good team in here and we’ll figure it out. When the gun goes off we’ve got to be ready and I’m confident we will be.”

With almost no runway before the playoffs, it’s going to be a major challenge for the coaching staff to assemble and test-drive line combinations, especially with things turning upside down in the last couple of weeks.

The guys who started slowly are picking up speed and the guys they count on for offence are drying up.

Viktor Arvidsson has four goals in the last six games, Brown has three goals in the last four games and Jeff Skinner has five goals and two assists in the last nine games. Meanwhile, Nugent-Hopkins has one assist since his hat-trick, eight games ago and Zach Hyman is pointless in the last six games.

So what do you do with the lines when you might only have one or two games to try them out?

“We have a lot of things to think about,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “That first line with Skinner, Brown and McDavid, they played really well. Is that something we’re going to go forward with in the playoffs?

“We still have Leon coming back, who are his line mates going to be? We have a lot to think about, a lot of line shuffling, unfortunately we don’t have a lot of games to test run those when we do get everyone back.

“There is a good likelihood we’re playing L.A. in the first round but we want to get an idea of what our team is going to look like, how it’s going to play.”

The so-called secondary players on this team have risen to the challenge in a big way during this. The Oilers went 4-4 without McDavid in the lineup and 1-4 in games where both McDavid and Draisaitl were missing, managing to keep the team’s head above water in the pretty serious storm.

From that perspective, this is exactly what the Oilers wanted to be seeing down the stretch.

“It was a difficult situation for our group as a whole, guys coming in and out of the lineup, sick hurt, whatever it is,” said McDavid. “We’ve had different guys stepping up throughout this injury and sickness bug. A lot of guys are stepping up and playing good hockey and contributing. It hasn’t been easy, but I thought the guys have battled hard.”

As for the updates, Knoblauch hopes Walman is playing Friday “but it might get pushed back another day,” and that “we anticipate Ekholm coming back, there are no issues there.” Goaltender Stuart Skinner is due back Friday against San Jose and Draisaitl will update everyone on his condition Friday morning.

They’re cutting it close, but McDavid says the Oilers will be good to go when the bell rings.

“We have a great medical staff here,” he said. “And I’m confident we’re going to get everybody ready to roll when it comes time.”