Adam Henrique has scored 20+ goals seven times.

He’s scored at least 11 goals in each of his first 14 NHL seasons, but he struggled with only two goals in 43 games before a broken finger forced him to sit out the previous 15 games. Henrique will be activated from LTI after this morning’s skate and will play his 1037th NHL regular-season game tonight against his former team, the Anaheim Ducks. Henrique doesn’t need any extra motivation. He’s excited to get back in the lineup.

I sat down with Henrique before the Edmonton Oilers flew to Anaheim to discuss his injury, the penalty kill, his lack of offence and the one thing he feels the Oilers need to instill in their game down the stretch.

Adam Henrique: That helps for sure. It’s no fun skating with no stick on the ice before the break, but it allows you to stay into a routine of skating and being on the ice and keeping your conditioning high and all those sorts of things which helps makes it easier.

It’s more now that we’re back from the Olympic break everything feels good timing-wise. The Olympic break helped my situation a bit and saved us a couple of weeks and I had an entire week before we start playing, so I can actually practice and get used to handling the puck, shooting pucks and just get back to feeling myself again. It was good timing for me.

Henrique: No, it’s been good. I was able to shoot a bit and play with the puck a little bit before the Olympic break which was nice. It was nice for the mindset with the injury to know that I’m in a great spot headed into the break and then the Olympic break just allowed me three more weeks to heal and feel better. I needed those extra weeks, and I didn’t have to miss any more games, which is great, and now this week just helps me get up to speed, shoot more pucks as well as off-play stuff.  I will be ready.

Henrique: I know you can go through stretches like that, but every time if you get scored on or you have a down game, you want to you go right to the video and try to try to fix those things.  Unfortunately, we had a stretch where we were giving up one or two a night and that put us into that hole. We’ve talked a little bit so far about it, and we’re making a couple minor adjustments, but nothing crazy.

We’ll be going over that kind of stuff and what would help simplify things and allow us to be a little bit more aggressive in areas where we’ve given up some opportunities. We should have that covered more but again the kill is just a hard-working area. You want to try to outwork the power play, muck it up, make it ugly for the high-end skill guys on that side of things and try to frustrate them. And then it just comes down to good positioning, have good stick positioning, blocking shots and getting saves. Everybody has to contribute and when we’re doing all those sorts of things and we’re getting two or three changes in one penalty kill that’s where we’re at our best.

Henrique: I’ve gone through slumps or down spots and it’s a matter of just working through it. I feel like the times where you’re getting opportunities and getting chances, but they’re not going in the net you can easily get frustrated, and that’s when things can snowball and go the wrong way and you start cheating the game a little bit and then other things go the wrong way.

So, as much as I want to score, I have to make sure my complete game is there. I have to be good defensively and be on the defensive side of the puck. And the penalty kills a big part of that.

For me, when I’ve produced it’s always just that simple hard-working game. If I can get to the net, and bang pucks in around the net, that’s where I score a lot of my goals. From the hash marks down to the front of the net area. I have to be in those areas to find scoring opportunities and bang home some ugly goals. I certainly need to improve on what I did earlier in the season and finish off better in the final 24 games.

Henrique: It’s kind of interesting time now coming out of this break and we are right into the trade deadline. Once you are at the trade deadline everyone knows the final stretch is here and it goes by quickly. You only have 20 games after the deadline to get on track.

The standings are so tight and a five-game streak, can put you in a good spot or a bad spot the other way. Collectively we know what it takes in here to win and to be in a position where we want to be, and I think it’s just a matter of understanding that we have to raise our game to a level where we have that playoff mentality.

The last couple of years we’ve played a lot of hockey, and you can go through those stretches where the excitement level isn’t as high as the games down the stretch, and that is a legitimate thing. But we need to flush that and come out ready for the stretch run right away. For a number of years there were teams rebuilding who weren’t that competitive, but now many of them are good and that’s why the standings are so tight everywhere. A lot of those teams are now in the playoff hunt, and you can see they have that desperation in their game.

We have to find that level and raise the bar within our dressing room. From top to bottom we have to find it and I’m sure we’ll talk about that even more in the coming days. You can tell everybody’s excited to be back and working on fine tuning our game. Guys are happy to be back and I’m confident we will have the focus necessary to win down the stretch.

Henrique mentioned the need to elevate their desperation level and match the intensity of their opponents. The Ducks, Kings and Sharks, their first three opponents out of the break, are all chasing them and they have playoff aspirations. The Oilers can’t feel their way into the season. They can’t afford a slow start coming off a break, which has been a weakness the past few seasons. They need to be ready, and Henrique must find a way to chip in more offensively as well as help stabilize the penalty kill. He’s capable of doing both.

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