Through the first half of the season, Trent Frederic’s start with the Edmonton Oilers after signing his eight-year deal hasn’t quite lived up to expectations, with only three points through 45 games.

As someone on the outside looking in, you can only speculate as to why — perhaps he’s still feeling the effects of the injury from last season, or maybe it’s simply still taking him time to adjust to the team. That said, the word that’s been sticking with me lately is confidence, which is something that can’t be tracked by data, or even the finest of technologies, at least to my knowledge.

Recently, Connor McDavid’s father, Brian, spoke about confidence while explaining the heater his son is on, recently extending his point streak to 20 games, saying, “Confidence is a huge thing, even for a player like him.”

Additionally, this past week I interviewed Vasily Podkolzin’s skills coach, Ned Lukacevic, and when I asked him what stands out most about Podkolzin’s improved offensive instincts this season, among a few things he mentioned was “confidence.”

Confidence, in life or in sports, is an important factor, and even professional athletes making millions of dollars struggle with it. For Frederic, this is purely speculation, but you don’t need a PhD to guess that his confidence — with only three points on the season after signing the biggest contract of his life — has likely taken a big hit.

And trying to dive further into the player’s mindset, I feel that at the start of the season, Frederic struggled with an identity issue. He played on the first line with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in the preseason, stayed there for only a couple of games in the regular season before the experiment was abandoned, and was then dropped to the bottom six. At that point, the question for him becomes: am I a top-six player, or a north-south, bottom-six physical guy?

And while Frederic was trying to figure out his identity on the team, the season wore on, and the points didn’t come. Thereafter, the 27-year-old likely started gripping the stick tighter and overthinking plays. In a hockey hotbed like Edmonton, that kind of pressure can weigh on a player, and I’d imagine his confidence on the ice hit a low point, and it’s been an uphill climb ever since.

Frederic’s game has picked up noticeably since the........

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