Oilers put their ‘work boots on’ and overwhelm Mammoth after ugly start

EDMONTON — At some point, “a collective effort of just not being there” wasn’t going to cut it.

The author of that quote, Edmonton head line-mixer Kris Knoblauch, knew he’d finally seen enough when he walked back into the coach’s office after Period 1, his team trailing 2-0 after tallying up 16 turnovers on line rushes by his Oilers on Tuesday.

Sixteen times they’d grabbed the puck and exited their zone against the Utah Mammoth, rolling over centre as one. And 16 times they’d given the puck away, messed up a pass, or in Darnell Nurse’s case, rifled an attempted dump-in off of linesman Travis Toomey, and watched it go back the other way and end up in Edmonton’s net.

So Knoblauch brought a message to his team in the dressing room at the intermission.

“Our message was, we have to work. We