Wait till next year.

Normally, that’s the battle cry of the loser, a default slogan with little substance, something you say when this season ends poorly and there is nowhere to go but up.

But for the Edmonton Oilers, it might be the most crucial chapter in their history since the 1982-83 season, the year after the Miracle on Manchester in Los Angeles helped bounce them in the first round of the playoffs.

That was the last chance for the boys on the bus to prove they had what it takes to be a champion. If they didn’t show Glen Sather something in those playoffs, there was a pretty good chance he was breaking up the band.

They responded, going to the Final that year and winning Stanley Cups in four of the next five seasons.

Which brings us to next year, a season every bit as crucial for the current Oilers as the one in 1982-83. Will it be the year the Oilers get back to the top of the NHL and threaten to win a Stanley Cup, reassuring their captain that this is the place to be, or will it be the year that Connor McDavid comes to a stark and sobering realization that their window is closed.

If the Oilers, from ownership to management to coaches to players, don’t show something next season, that might be it for the McDavid era in Edmonton.

So how much window do the Oilers have left? It might be too early to suggest it’s already closed, but there are some warning signs, to be sure.

The core of the team is getting older. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will be 33 next season. Darnell Nurse will be 32. Zach Hyman will be 34. Mattias Ekholm will be 36. McDavid will be 30, Leon Draisaitl 31.

And behind them there aren’t many impact players in the 24-28 age range beyond Evan Bouchard (27 next season) and Vasily Podkolzin (25 next year).

That doesn’t scream long-term sustainability.

And there are fundamental issues in personnel, style and commitment that need to be remedied in order for the Oilers to return to their previous form. They need to do something about their goaltending and they’ll need another scoring forward to round out the second line if 29 and 97 play together.

But that won’t be easy to fix with the snap of some fingers. The free agent pool is very thin this summer and the Oilers are running out of draft picks and prospects to trade.

“I don’t know if we’re going to have a dramatically different roster next year,” said GM Stan Bowman. “It’s not like we have to rewrite everything, but we do need some adjustments. Sometimes just a few players can make a big difference.

“We’ll have some new faces. Who they will be and how many they will be, it’s a little too early to tell right now.”

Beyond what the Oilers do to repair themselves before next year, there is also the deepening concern around the rest of the NHL. The reality of Edmonton’s situation is that the the NHL’s true power teams left them behind last year. That’s not hyperbole, those are the hard, cold facts.

Against top level teams in the NHL, the Oilers were 2-9-3 and outscored 69-32, including lopsided defeats against Colorado (9-1), Dallas (8-3 and 7-2), Carolina (6-3), Buffalo (5-1), Minnesota (7-3 and 5-2) and a combined score of 9-2 against Florida and Tampa.

In a multi-tiered NHL, Edmonton was nowhere near the top rung.

And the young teams are catching up, if not passing them by. The Anaheim Ducks are planting their flag in the Pacific Division. San Jose, already with Macklin Celebrini, gets another gem with the second overall pick this summer. Utah is on the move. And out East, Buffalo, Montreal and Philadelphia are coming of age.

As tough as this season was, next year will only be tougher.

“This year felt like there was a big turnover,” said McDavid. “Those young teams are not young losing teams, they’re really good teams with great players. San Jose. It’s not long before Chicago figures it out. Utah is right there, too. It was a big changeover kind of year and we have to get going.”

And the Oilers, it’s been well-documented, are moving in the wrong direction. This season and the subsequent first-round loss to Anaheim is damning, there’s no way around it.

But that happens to a lot of great teams. The Colorado Avalanche lost in the first round in two of three years after winning the Cup in 2022 and now they look ready to win another. The Tampa Bay Lightning choked in the first round in 2019 and went on to win the next two Cups.

One bad year doesn’t mean it’s all over. Most teams experience significant swings in an otherwise steady arc. Just because you were great last year doesn’t mean you’ll be great this year (ask Winnipeg or Florida) and just because you were average this year doesn’t mean you’ll be that, or worse, next year.

But McDavid is right, the Oilers have to get going. They might only have one year of runway left and the road ahead looks as daunting as it has in a long time.

“Regardless of Connor’s contract or not, the clock is ticking,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “You see it in the NHL with how long windows last for successful teams because of players aging out or contact cap situations.

“There is a window. Right now it’s win now. It’s highlighted a little more with Connor’s situation, but with any good team the window is short and you have to make the most out of it.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

Related

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post, and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun