Mattias Janmark’s grit proves veteran depth is needed alongside star power for Oilers

EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers farmed out Mattias Janmark after training camp, a free agent signing who had not done enough to get noticed at training camp. Yeah, there were some extenuating circumstances, but when camp was done Janmark was the one clearing waivers.

“Man, I barely noticed the guy,” fans said, en masse.

But hang on a sec.

There are reasons general manager Ken Holland acquired a veteran depth forward like Mattias Janmark, and those reasons don’t happen in September. Frankly, they don’t even happen in October, November, December or January.

“You play 82 games, and it’s not a lot of moments that really matter,” Janmark told us after practice on Wednesday. “But then, once the playoffs start, I feel like every shift you’re out there, someone’s gonna notice what you’re doing. You can have an impact in every situation that you’re in.”

Playoffs, or even after the calendar turns mid-season, on an Oilers team that was average at best before Christmas, and today rides a four-game winning streak into Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Everything changes when the second half of a National Hockey League season arrives.

Games get tighter. Players who would adhere to their system intermittently in the first half now dig in on systems play for the entire 60 minutes.

Teams that are in the playoffs play harder, because every point matters. And teams for whom a playoff berth is still a realistic aspiration, they play extra hard. Because to them, the points really matter.

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The little things begin to become big things at this time of year. And suddenly, as the power play units cool off, scores begin to come down a bit, and the PK guys start falling in front of pucks more often, we reach that time of year when we start to appreciate the Mattias Janmarks of the world.

“Throughout the year, those top players are always going to score. You know what? They’re all this,” began Janmark, who has found a role on a strong third line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Klim Kostin.

“Then you have the bottom guys, who are going to go on streaks where they score and where they don’t score. Once you’ve gone through those streaks when you don’t score, you kind of figure out that you have to do something (else). Find that balance of what you will provide when you’re not going to score for a bit.

“You have to provide something else,” he reasons. “Otherwise, you’re useless.”

If he plays 82 games, Janmark is going to score you 10 goals. He’ll get you 20-25 points, without selling a single jersey along the way.

But if you don’t have a rack of jerseys sporting the No. 26 in the team store, you will need some playoff tickets on hand. Because without players like Janmark, you don’t win.

“Those are the types of players you do win with,” Woodcroft said. “Maybe not the guys who stand out and all the highlight reels, but they do small things that help teams win.”

Here in Edmonton, they’ve struggled with this.

Struggled with the thought that a 10-goal, third- or fourth-line player can be as integral a part of winning as the guy playing two lines ahead of him.

Then you’d play the championship L.A. Kings, and they’d have Trevor Lewis and the same Jarrett Stoll the Oilers had traded away. Or Chicago, with guys like Dave Bolland and Michael Frolik.

You might play those teams close, but when it counted, somebody always had the answer to the question, “Why do those teams make the playoffs every year and we don’t?”

Sometimes that answer was Toews or Kopitar, and sometimes it was Dwight King or Andrew Shaw.

Then you reach the Western Conference Final, and as much as Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar inflicted damage, you didn’t have an answer for J.T. Compher and Artturi Lehkonen either.

So Holland added Janmark to a group that includes Warren Foegele and Derek Ryan, and threw Kostin into the mix as well. And slowly there is a low end to compliment the high end in Edmonton. A low gear for the mud, because the NHL playoffs are never played on a smoothly paved highway

“I see somebody who makes an impact in games. That doesn’t always show up in the stat column. I think you win with guys like Mattias Janmark,” said head coach Jay Woodcroft. “I love the fact that he has gone through the year that he’s gone and he just keeps getting better and he is a valued, valued member of our team.”

He is now, anyway. Because now is when the games really count.

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