The pressure in Oil Country is clearly mounting.

No, we're not talking about the force inside an oil drill, we're talking about the Edmonton Oilers, who lost back-to-back games over the weekend to their provincial rival and the Carolina Hurricanes by a combined 12-6.

On Monday afternoon, the Oilers placed forwards Ryan Spooner and Ty Rattie on waivers, hoping that the old saying of "addition by subtraction" will help improve the team's defensive play.

Following practice, captain Connor McDavid fielded questions about the state of the team and wants his club to embrace the battle that lies ahead in hopes of locking up a wild card spot.

 

"We hear the boos and we hear the stuff that’s going on, but we understand the fans are frustrated,” McDavid said. “We expect better out of ourselves and they obviously expect better of us. We need to be better.

“The only people that seem to believe in us are the guys in the locker room and we need to rally behind that.”

When pressed about if what players inside the locker room are choosing not to believe in their playoff chances, McDavid had a stern message for his club.

"Well if there are guys that believe that, then they should get out of the room."

"If you don’t believe in this group and you're in the locker room, then you need to leave. I don’t get that sense, I don’t feel that way. I think that everyone in there believes in each other and believes we’ll get it done.”

Secondary scoring has been a hot topic and will remain to be until the Oilers can find other sources of offence outside their top players, but it's their defensive structure that needs to be tightened up. Heading into the final few months of the season, the 22-year-old said his team needs to start winning low-scoring, tightly-contested games.

“We’re a team where we’re not going to out-skill anyone. We’re not going to win games 6-5. We’re a team that needs to find ways to win games 2-1, 3-2. We can get to two or three every night, but we need to find a way to keep goals out of our net.”

Over their last 17 outings, the team is 6-11-0 and have allowed 3 or more goals in 13 of those games.

The Oilers trail the Vancouver Canucks for three points for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference and will look to get back on track on Wednesday against the Red Wings.