Matured and in their prime, Oilers embracing the good habits it takes to win

EDMONTON — It was one of those conversations you have when you walk into your first rink of the fall. With a scout, a trainer, a GM, a player… Maybe the Zamboni guy. 

They’re happening all over the National Hockey League this week. 

“How was your summer?” “Play some golf?” “What lake are you at again?” 

But at some point this one led to how many Edmonton Oilers players had come in early for the Captain’s skates, and from there, how many actually own homes and spend the majority of their summers here in Edmonton. It’s way up from where it used to be. 

“It’s not like 10 years ago when guys were all parachuting in here at the last minute,” I said. 

“We’ve got men on our team now,” came the reply. “Not boys.” 

Men, not boys. We hadn’t looked at it that way… 

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For years in Edmonton, it’s been a bunch of kids who were supposed to take this team over the top. Along with a collection of older vets who only signed here because the Oilers paid them 20 percent more than the market should have. 

But as Connor McDavid noted the other day, times have finally changed:  

“There are stages to winning. Stages to every group’s maturity level. Everybody’s in their prime,” began McDavid, who engaged wife-to-be Lauren Kyle this summer. “You know, it’s not like we’re waiting on the first round pick to have an amazing season and come save us, or get us into the playoffs — like it has been at times in Edmonton. Everybody’s ready to go.” 

One of those first overall picks is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, whose wife Breanne gave birth to daughter Lennon over the summer, their first. 

Nugent-Hopkins, who may never look older than about 23, is somehow 30 years old now, and he’s watching a dressing room growing up all around him. 

“I think we had seven babies this year,” he said of the Oilers on-ice family. “When I first came in, it was a majority of young guys, and then some older guys with older kids. Now it’s a lot of babies and toddlers running around. A lot of guys in their late 20’s, kind of in the prime of their career right now. 

“So it’s exciting in the hockey sense, and I think adds a little fun with the little ones running around as well.” 

All of this sounds like bad news for The Pint, or whatever the local clubs are in Edmonton, as players choose play dates over pickup lines. 

“Everyone’s old,” kidded Darnell Nurse, just a few days after welcoming Chase — the Nurse’s second son (Aiden was the first) — into the world. 

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What does this mean for the Edmonton dressing room? 

“You haven’t slept all night, (but) the guy next to you probably hasn’t slept all night either,” Nurse laughed. “It changes things. You’re talking to some guys about daycares, or school. Jay (head coach Woodcroft) has brought in Family Days, where guys are bringing their kids to the rink to see a meeting, see a practice. 

“That’s what happens with a rebuilding team,” Nurse said. “You’re young and everyone’s getting their feet wet. And then you’re nine years in and the dynamic, the perspective of everyone changes.” 

This is the franchise that gave hockey the Boys on the Bus, and that group was so wildly talented that it found itself in Stanley Cup finals before most of that core group was married. Today, the salary cap has evened the playing field to the point where no roster stands above the rest the way those old Oilers teams did. 

Today, it’s the small things that will separate an Edmonton from a Colorado, a Toronto from a Tampa. Assuming good health, the difference becomes intangible elements that no player under the age of 24 has had time to accrue. 

“It would be hard to pinpoint one or two habits. You become a more veteran team you understand what it takes to win,” said Nurse. “And those habits have to show up in training camp — or even in these (Captain’s) skates. There are so many little details of the game that you have to have from start to finish.” 

Habits that an NHL player gathers over time. That’s why there are always little kids running around the dressing room of a Stanley Cup winner, something we haven’t seen in this town for a long, long time. 

It’s a growing up thing. You get married, you have kids, and somehow you’re not the same employee you used to be when you were single. 

“It’s early for me — I’m only three weeks in,” Nugent-Hopkins said of his journey through fatherhood. “But I think you’ve got to mature pretty quick when you have a kid. So I definitely think it affect your play in a good way.” 

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