{"id":572006,"date":"2026-03-31T02:43:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/572006\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:43:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:43:33","slug":"oilers-focused-on-playoff-prep-as-pacific-chaos-swirls-around-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/572006\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers focused on playoff prep as Pacific chaos swirls around them"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 Up here in their little corner of a Pacific Division they\u2019ve won for the past two seasons, the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> are watching the mayhem around them, whistling quietly as their own season finally comes together.<\/p>\n

A fired coach in Vegas. The daily recording of new lows in Vancouver. The plucky, rebuilding Flames, finally winning games at the worst possible time, and a San Jose team that looked so good only two weeks ago, suddenly tied for 28th and vying for another high pick.<\/p>\n

Anaheim and Los Angeles are likely feeling the same way as Edmonton, three teams that like their circumstances \u2014 until they compare them to all those aforementioned teams. Then they like it even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the direction that it\u2019s going right now,\u201d said Jack Roslovic<\/a>, who became Edmonton\u2019s fifth 20-goal scorer when he slid one home Saturday against Anaheim in Edmonton\u2019s third straight win.<\/p>\n

Roslovic played for John Tortorella in Columbus and isn\u2019t surprised to see him back behind an NHL bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he just misses it,\u201d Roslovic said. \u201cHe lives on a lot of land. Maybe he gets lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody wants to have too loud an opinion on your chief rival\u2019s coaching change. Roslovic prefers a quiet role as part of the new blood in Edmonton, a group of first-year Oilers watching the environment change as the calendar turns from March to April.<\/p>\n

The pending UFA Roslovic played 25 playoff games over the past two seasons \u2014 16 with the Rangers, nine in Carolina \u2014 but in a nine-year NHL career he only has 45 post-season games.<\/p>\n

Connor Murphy (nine) and Jason Dickinson (40) aren\u2019t far off that, two players who came to Edmonton at the trade deadline and are loving the process of being embroiled in a meaningful stretch run with the promise of playoff games in a Canadian market ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to play competitively, and at the highest stakes,\u201d said Murphy, a long-time Arizona Coyote and Chicago Blackhawk. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to get the most motivated you\u2019ve ever been for these games, and you want that pressure to know that every little play you make has an impact on a meaningful game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickinson has played in Chicago, Dallas, and Vancouver. He hasn\u2019t played a playoff game since 2020, and that was the antiseptic experience inside the Edmonton bubble during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a far cry from what he\u2019s experienced in a month spent as an Oiler in Edmonton, where hockey is king.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing I notice is getting recognized,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cNow, you go to the grocery store and people are just beaming with excitement. Not only to meet you just but also to say, ‘Good luck. We’re so excited.’<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m Canadian and I get it. Hockey’s a religion. It is everything to us in Canada, and Edmonton definitely rings true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NHLNHL on Sportsnet<\/p>\n

Livestream Hockey Night in Canada, Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey, the Oilers, Flames, Canucks, out-of-market matchups, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NHL Draft.<\/p>\n

Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

Dickinson walked down the tunnel here at Rogers Place as a younger man back in 2020, playing for a Stars team that lost the Stanley Cup Final in six to Tampa. There were no fans, the building was freezing cold, and the fake, piped-in crowd noises were an abomination. A slap in the face to playoff hockey.<\/p>\n

Three weeks from now he\u2019ll do all those things again, but for real.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely something to look forward to,\u201d he smiled. \u201cI remember my first playoff game (for Dallas), it was against Nashville, in Nashville. I was blown away by what I saw.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t know Nashville could get like that. And I just imagine it being 10 times bigger here. So as excited and blown away as I was, then, I’m expecting much more this time, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems a stretch to conceive that this spring\u2019s Oilers could have similar success to the last two years, when you consider they\u2019ve won exactly half of their games \u2014 37 of 74 \u2014 in regulation this season.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s basically a .500 team, with a few overtimes and loser points thrown in.<\/p>\n

But on the flip side, would anyone have believed that Connor Ingram<\/a> \u2014 denied a training camp invite by Utah and dealt away soon after \u2014 would emerge as the No. 1 in Edmonton?<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you have believed it if I told you?\u201d Ingram asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think I ever doubted it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, you know, there were days where it seemed like a distant future or a long ways away. It’s hard in this business. You don’t really know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me, so it’s been a big learning curve this year of just keeping your eyes open.<\/p>\n

“Just being as ready as you can, whenever that opportunity.”<\/p>\n

That sums up his team perfectly, as a previously unforeseen path to playoff success may be unfolding in front of them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quiet here now. The Oilers are winning of late.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d rather keep it that way, if you don\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 Up here in their little corner of a Pacific Division they\u2019ve won for the past two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-572006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}