In his seventh NHL season Jordan Eberle is in the playoffs for the first time, but he hasn’t experienced a lot of personal success in his initial endeavour into the post season.
The Edmonton Oilers’ veteran forward has no goals and two assists in nine playoff games.
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After Edmonton’s 6-3 Game 3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks Sunday, head coach Todd McLellan simply said the team wasn’t getting enough from Eberle, and the five-time 20 goal scorer knows it.
“I’m an offensive guy. I’m my own worst critic. Obviously, I want to be putting the puck in the net. I can be great defensively and do good board work and I all that, but I’m a goal scorer,” Eberle said.
Eberle said he needs to be grittier which means getting to the front of the net.
“A lot of those goals too are finding loose pucks around the net. I’m not going to be a guy to crash and bang and use my frame to get to the net, but you need to be sneaky and darted and out to find ways that way,” Eberle said.
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McLellan said while Eberle has become a more defensively responsible player, he still needs to balance that with finding ways to contribute offensively.
“We don’t want him to play a high-risk, low-reward game. We want him to play with a little bit of risk and a high-reward game,” Eberle said.
“He’s got to learn to…or get better at, because he knows how, finding the holes, hit the holes at the right time, find secondary opportunities in and around the blue paint.”
Eberle said he needs to be patient in order to find and create opportunities for himself.