Mark Spector

Edmonton

Senior Columnist at Sportsnet Canada

Sr. columnist, https://t.co/Zjp5zYrRVl. Past President, Professional Hockey Writers' Association. Author of Battle of Alberta and Road to Gold. Skier of bumps.

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Articles

Oilers Notebook: Healthy Evander Kane back in the mix for Game 2 against Kings

1 day ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

LOS ANGELES — In Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final last year, Evander Kane went minus-3 with no points or shots on net. That was it. A player whose core injury would not even allow him to sit on the bench between shifts — he would routinely stand at the end of the bench throughout last spring’s playoff run — Kane’s ability to play hurt and still help the team had expired. That was June 10.
Can Oilers get over hump with Skinner and Bouchard?

2 days ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

LOS ANGELES — There is every chance that this will not be the Oilers' year to finally win that Stanley Cup in the McDavid-Draisaitl era. Not because they’ve lost Game 1. That’s almost irrelevant for a team that loses Game 1 far more often than winning it.
Oilers take positives from Game 1 loss after late rally: 'We gave ourselves a chance'

3 days ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

LOS ANGELES — What do the Edmonton Oilers take from a game like that, with so much negative followed by so much positive? How do you learn, when you go down 4-0 with six shots on goal in the opening 30 minutes, then storm back against the stingiest team in the league to tie the game at 5-5, scoring twice with the goalie pulled? When the Kings played their game, it wasn’t close as to who the better team was. Then, when Edmonton found its game, the chasm between the two teams was perhaps even wider.
Oilers Notebook: Trent Frederic ready to suit up vs. Kings

3 days ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

LOS ANGELES — Trent Frederic will play tonight for the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 against the Los Angeles Kings, his first action since re-injuring his high ankle sprain here in a game on April 5. “I've got a good amount of skates under me, and fortunately we have a Monday game to start the series,” he said. “I feel good.
Can this version of Oilers beat Kings again?

3 days ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

LOS ANGELES — The Edmonton Oilers were supposed to be like the Florida Panthers. Get to the Stanley Cup one year, win it the next. Then the Dylan Holloway/Philip Broberg offer sheets came along. Then Ryan McLeod was traded for a player who has spent the season in the minors. Then Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson weren’t the free-agent signings they were hoped to be.
Oilers keeping lineup decisions close to vest ahead of Game 1 vs. Kings

5 days ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

SAN JOSE — Kris Knoblauch grew up in Imperial, Saskatchewan, so he knows what a manure spreader is for. He just never thought he’d be one. It’s playoff time, remember, and quietly over these past couple of weeks, an honest man has been sprinkling his media scrums with what Eddie Keen, an old Edmonton columnist, used to call, “El Toro poo poo.”Hey — Knoblauch is just a guy doing his job, a vocation that requires the occasional withholding of a fact or two.
Oilers unfazed by injuries, rotating defence partners: 'Business as usual'

6 days ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

SAN JOSE — Evan Bouchard, Travis Dermott, Josh Brown…The weird thing about the Edmonton Oilers defence corps under the deployment of assistant coach Paul Coffey, is how little the defence pairs stayed the same this season. In the same game one blue-liner could take shifts beside two or three others, depending on the situation, who was hurt, or simply Coffey’s latest whim. The Oilers had one pair — Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard — that logged nearly 1,000 five-on-five minutes together.
Oilers rounding into form at perfect time as real test begins

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

A season that began with the intent of winning the Pacific Division closed out in third place last night in San Jose. But as the Edmonton Oilers find some health, structure and goaltending in a 3-0 season finale at San Jose, they’re also finding some positive juju. The feeling around this team today is that — regardless of where they finished in the 2024-25 season — they’re starting to play the game they hoped they’d be playing when the playoffs arrived.
McDavid pushes back on idea that Oilers are 'wounded'

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

EDMONTON — Connor McDavid walked out of an optional practice that included just four players — himself, Leon Draisaitl, rookie Quinn Hutson and injured John Klingberg — and told the media not to believe their eyes. “Guys are healthier than it may seem,” McDavid said. “I think we kind of have this aura around us that we’re the walking wounded. But we're just fine. Everybody's going to be ready to roll.”But…“I don't like this whole notion that we're the walking wounded here.
Tempers flare as short-handed Oilers thumped by Kings in pre-playoff dust-up

1 week ago | sportsnet.ca | Mark Spector

EDMONTON — It was a 2025 brawl. Plenty of face washes, lots of chirping and not a single scrap. “I think they have their B squad and they’re trying to hurt us tonight,” said Phillip Danualt, continuing the theme said in his intermission interview. It was the kind of fine whine that would have got you laughed out of the rink years ago, but today, that’s what we do. Complain to the intermission host. “What the f---?” said Corey Perry when informed of Danault’s complaint.