Through 71 games, the Edmonton Oilers haven’t found much consistency. They’ve won three games in a row once, and they’ve yet to win four. Last season, they had nine winning streaks of three or more games, winning 3, 3, 5, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3 and 3. Winning often keeps morale high and frustration low, but when you are a team that expects to compete for the Stanley Cup, yet sits third in the Pacific “Pillow Fight” Division and struggles to find consistency, the frustration mounts.

Fresh off another home loss, Connor McDavid raved about Lightning head coach Jon Cooper and his team.

It is rare to see McDavid’s line and the top defence pair of Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm get outshot to that level. They had a rough game, and a rare game in which they weren’t pushing the pace. I’ve seen some suggest it was due to playing against the NHL’s hottest player in Nikita Kucherov. Kucherov has 100 points in his last 47 games and finished with four points against the Oilers. He’s on fire, and he did torch the Oilers, but most of his success came against McDavid’s line.

Darnell Nurse played the most minutes against Kucherov, and actually outshot Kucherov 5-2 and didn’t give up a goal. Nurse and Connor Murphy, along with the Jason Dickinson line, had much more success against Kucherov’s line. Head coach Kris Knoblauch doesn’t shy away from playing McDavid’s line against the best players. McDavid likes the challenge, and often does very well, but on Saturday, his line struggled. In this era of the NHL, we rarely see a head coach do a hard matchup in the regular season, where he chases one line against an opposing line. Dickinson played 5:28 against Kucherov while McDavid played 6:54. They were on for 12:22 of Kucherov’s 13:55 of five-on-five ice time. Dickinson’s line fared much better.

But overall, McDavid’s line had a rough game.

The only Tampa line McDavid outshot was their fourth line. It was a rare off night for McDavid, and did his frustration play a role in his post-game comments? Maybe a small part, but I have no doubt he is more frustrated with how this season has unfolded. It has been a tough season for the Oilers. They haven’t been able to gain much ground.

The Tristan Jarry trade hasn’t worked thus far. The Oilers could have kept Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak and just recalled Connor Ingram if they wanted. Or Stan Bowman could have looked for another trade, other than acquiring Jarry. Jarry could still salvage the trade by playing well, whenever he gets back in goal, but thus far the trade has been underwhelming.

McDavid’s opinion carries weight across the NHL, and even more so within the Oilers organization. Owner Darryl Katz will have heard or read those words, and it puts people on notice. McDavid starts a new two-year contract next season, and the pressure to win will be even higher for the organization than it will be for McDavid. Thirty-one other NHL organizations would love the opportunity to acquire him, although realistically, there are only a handful that McDavid would agree to play for. The truth is, when the new contract begins, the pressure to win will be higher than it ever has been. Katz knows it, and if the Oilers lose in the first or second round this season, I could see a significant change in the organization.

To avoid that, the Oilers need to win. They need to find consistency in their game, and whether it is fair or not, much of that will fall at the feet of head coach Kris Knoblauch. Let’s be clear: the coach doesn’t play the game. If you look at the turning point of the Oilers’ loss to Tampa Bay, it occurred when the Oilers were on a five-on-three and didn’t score. Bouchard beat Andrei Vasilevskiy but hit the crossbar. Later in the man advantage, McDavid tried to attack the Lightning defence, got knocked down, and JJ Moser made an outstanding pass to hit Kucherov coming out of the penalty box, and he scored shorthanded to make it 3-1. Coaching wasn’t the issue on that play, however, there are some areas in which Knoblauch deserves criticism.

Knoblauch’s need to constantly change lines is valid criticism. Why did he move Matt Savoie off the top line when he was playing well? He had been creating a lot. Yes, he wasn’t finishing all his chances, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins doesn’t finish more at five-on-five, so why the need to put him back on that line? Is it because McDavid wanted RNH on his line, or was it Knoblauch’s decision? You will never get a clear answer on that.

McDavid raved about Cooper’s coaching and their system, but Kucherov played 13:55 at five-on-five compared to McDavid logging 19:30. Does Tampa have better depth, or do they just use their players more? A bit of both. I’d argue at times, Knoblauch relies too heavily on his superstars. So how does Knoblauch find that balance? It varies from game to game.

Today after practice, McDavid said this about his post-game comments and Leon Draisaitl’s comments before the Olympic break.

Regardless of the situation, it is clear the pressure is mounting in Edmonton. This regular season hasn’t gone according to plan, and while a successful playoff run could fix that, there is no guarantee of playoff success. And even if the Oilers win two rounds, that might not be deemed successful enough by the owner, the captain or the fanbase.

The Oilers can still salvage their season. They can earn home-ice advantage, for the first round at least, with a solid final 11 games, but make no mistake, McDavid’s post-game comments outline the internal pressure and frustration, and the pressure surrounding the entire organization.

The next few months will determine how large of a change we could see within the organization.

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