The first quarter of the 2024-25 season did not go as planned for the Edmonton Oilers. They went 10-9-2 and have the 10th-best P% in the Western Conference. They currently sit in the second wildcard position with 22 points, but Vancouver and Seattle have 21 points respectively and the Canucks have three games in hand, while Seattle has one.

The Oilers aren’t where they want to be. They need to clean up many areas of their game and many individuals need to play better. The Oilers’ struggles aren’t due to one player. There is no easy or quick fix. It will take hard work and a commitment to each other to get them playing to their potential.

The season isn’t lost. Worst case scenario they are six points back of Vegas after they play their 21st game, or five back of Calgary if they win their 21st game. They aren’t in a deep hole, they just need more consistency in certain areas of their play. Let’s look at where they can improve.

The Oilers are 4-6-1 at home. They are 31st in GF/GP at 2.27 and 30th in Sv% at .871. While many fans want to blame everything on Stuart Skinner, that is misguided. He can play better, no question, but I sense many are so disenchanted with Skinner that every goal that goes in now is his fault. It is dangerous to want to blame one player for a team’s woes.

The Oilers’ inability to score goals has been a major issue all year. Prior to yesterday’s game head coach Kris Knoblauch was asked what he felt was the team’s biggest concern.

“Finishing and creating a lot of scoring chances,” said Knoblauch. “Teams all create their scoring chances differently, whether it is point shots, pressures, off the rush, and in a lot of the offensive metrics we are very high. Probably the biggest telling metric on creating chances are how many shot attempts are you getting from the slot. We are among the top three in almost every category, and my biggest concern is making the plays. Five-on-five we’ve been playing very well, and our special teams need to improve, and they are coming along.”

I understand for some it is easier to direct all their anger at one player, but I find it odd to solely blame Skinner. None of last night’s goals were terrible goals. Could he have made a big stop or two? Sure, but even if he did, the skaters still generated virtually nothing offensively. They got two very lucky bounces that made the game look closer than it was.

The Oilers have been shut out twice already in 11 home games. They’ve scored two goals or fewer six times.

For fun, let’s remove the home opening 6-0 loss from the stats pack. In his other home games Skinner has a .900Sv% and 2.84 GAA. Not stellar, but not horrific. Remove the first game and the Oilers skaters’ statistics don’t get much better. Skinner had a .913Sv% and 2.49 GAA on home ice last year. Yes, he can play better, but the entire offence is not close to last year’s production.

The Oilers averaged 4.12 GF/GP last year at home. They are at 2.27 this season. Almost two fewer goals per game.

Last season the Oilers had five skaters average over one point/game on home ice. Connor McDavid had 83 points, Leon Draisaitl had 61, Zach Hyman 49, Evan Bouchard 47 and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 41. Evander Kane (14) and Warren Foegele (11) had double digits in goals, while Mattias Ekholm (23) and Darnell Nurse (20) averaged 0.5 points/game.

Even when I remove the home opener, the Oilers still only have two players at a point-per-game pace. McDavid has 13 points in nine games (1.44) while Draisaitl has 10 points in 10 games. McDavid produced 2.27 PPG last year at home. Even their superstar is well below his production.

Nurse is the only player producing more at home ice compared to last year’s first quarter. He has five points in nine games and leads the Oilers at +3.

The forward group has been quiet. Corey Perry and Jeff Skinner have two goals and are on pace for eight. Adam Henrique, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor Brown have one goal, and are on pace for four. The others forwards have zero home goals COMBINED.

I’m sorry but blaming S. Skinner more than the collective forward group is misguided. Their offence on home ice has been horrendous.

No debate, Skinner needs to play better — especially on the road. In four of his six road starts, Skinner has allowed a combined 16 goals with a Sv% of .870 or lower in all four. They need him to make a few more saves. Calvin Pickard has been great on the road allowing only seven goals in his four starts for a .933Sv%. He won in Nashville (twice) and Detroit and lost in Montreal.

Skinner needs to use the upcoming mini bye week as a reset. The Oilers host the Rangers tomorrow, and they don’t play again until Friday in Utah. The Oilers will have Sunday off, then have two practices days, take Wednesday off, and practice against Thursday. Having three practice days out of four is something that rarely happens in a season. Last year the Oilers had a similar five-day break, and after the break they won four in a row, lost three, then won 16 straight. The difference from this year is that they had won four in a row before the break, but the timing of the break gave them a boost and the Oilers need to get a similar bump this year.

Skinner can’t worry about the first quarter. He needs to work on some technical aspects of his game, mainly reads off the rush, but also flush the first quarter. At times he has looked a bit more frustrated than before. Knoblauch felt Skinner played well v. Minnesota. He had no issue with any of the goals. He liked his process, but Minnesota still scored five goals and that will impact Skinner’s confidence. He needs to regain some swagger. It is a huge part of any player’s success, and it will start with feeling good about the foundation of his game. I wonder if the Oilers will bring out a third goalie next week. They gave Skinner, along with others, a day off today, and I wonder if one day next week they have Skinner spend more one-on-one time with Dustin Schwartz at their practice facility working on reads off the rush. That is the main area of concern in his game right now. Will he have some one-one-one time and then join the group and incorporate the rush reads in practice? It is just an idea.

I asked Knoblauch about Skinner’s play to this point.

“He is not playing to the level he was last year.” said Knoblauch. “Last season, since I got here, he was one of the top goaltenders in the league, and if he had a bad game, it was turned around the next night.

“I think overall for a goalie to play well it’s got to be predictable. We have to be more predictable for him. What kind of shots are we giving up and where are they (coming from)? Take away the high danger shots. Tonight was not a predictable game for a goaltender to turn his game around,” Knoblauch said.

Two things can happen at the same time. Edmonton needs more saves from Skinner, and according to the coach, the team needs to be sounder structurally, so the goalie has better knowledge of where the shot is coming from.

It has been an issue all season. Their 5×5 scoring ranks 21st. They are 22nd on the powerplay and overall, they are 20th in GF/GP at 2.76. Last season they were fourth in goals at 3.58/game.

Through the first quarter last season the Oilers had 57 goals from their forwards and 13 from their blueline. They averaged 3.33 GF/GP.

Zach Hyman led them with 12, Evander Kane (11), Draisaitl (9), McDavid (8), RNH (5), Sam Gagner and Warren Foegele (3), Derek Ryan and James Hamblin (2) and Mattias Janmark and Dylan Holloway (1).

Their blueline goals came from Evan Bouchard (5), Mattias Ekholm and Darnell Nurse (3) and Brett Kulak and Vincent Desharnais (1).

This season their forwards have 45 goals and the blueline has

Draisaitl (15), McDavid (9), Corey Perry and Jeff Skinner (4), Hyman and Connor Brown (3), RNH, Adam Henrique and Viktor Arvidsson (2) and Janmark (1).

Gagner, Foegele, Holloway, Hamblin and Ryan McLeod combined for nine goals. Their replacements: Perry, Skinner, Arvidsson, Henrique and Vasily Podkolzin have combined for 12.

Hyman has produced nine fewer goals while RNH is down three. That is the 12-goal difference from last season. Draisaitl, McDavid and C. Brown have scored 10 more goals than they did last year, which replaces Kane’s production.

I didn’t expect Hyman to score at a 54-goal pace this season. Only two active NHL players have produced consecutive 50-goal seasons in the salary cap era, Alex Ovechkin and Leon Draisaitl

However, I didn’t think he’d be on pace for 12 either. He has been snakebit around the net, and the Oilers were hoping from more production from Skinner, Arvidsson and Henrique.

The wingers who get to play with McDavid and Draisaitl need to score more. That is the biggest issue offensively. They are generating a lot of chances, but they can’t finish.

The defence has produced the exact same 13 goals as last season. Bouchard has five while Kulak has four and Ekholm and Nurse have two.

Bouchard’s significant uptick in shot attempts blocked is impacting the offence in fewer rebound possibilities. Bouchard has been very good in his career at getting shots through, but so far this year he’s struggling mightily.

Last season Bouchard had 44 attempts blocked through 21 games. Offensive D-men are always the leader in this category as they have the puck the most and take the most attempts. However, he’s getting shots blocked at a much higher rate this year. He’s had 74 blocked this season, which is a 68% increase over the first quarter last year.

Nurse and Ekholm had a combined 72 blocked last year and this year they sit at 71. It is just Bouchard who has taken a big jump. He showed some frustration in the third period last night when another attempt was blocked. I asked him what he’s seeing in regard to the significant increase in attempts blocked.

“I feel that is the way it is going for me this year. Hitting the edges of sticks or a small guy, where it usually goes through. Maybe it is just about getting it down there (to the net), even it is missing the net to give our forwards a chance. They are doing a lot of work to get it back up to me, and when you get it blocked you don’t reward them. It is something I have to improve,” said Bouchard.

I’d be quite surprised if Bouchard continues to have his shots blocked this frequent. He’s on pace to have 105 more blocked this year than last.

There is no reason the Oilers’ power play should be 22nd at 16.7%. They have too much skill to be below San Jose, Columbus, Philadelphia and other teams with much less first unit PP talent.

McDavid has four goals, while Draisaitl has two and Hyman has one. That’s it from the first unit. Ekholm has scored twice on the second unit. They have a total of nine goals. Their PP had 20 goals through 21 games last season. Eight different players had goals in Draisaitl (6), Hyman (4), Kane, Ekholm, McDavid and Bouchard (2) and RNH and Nurse (1).

As outlined above, they’ve scored 13 fewer goals this year and 11 of that reduction is on the PP. Their best players need to be better on the man advantage. By a lot. They’ve had a significant reduction on the man advantage from this time last year.

Skinner’s Sv% isn’t a 55% reduction. Fun fact: It is the exact same as the first quarter last year. Not good enough for certain, but again, he isn’t the main reason the Oilers are only 10-9-2. The PP has to get on track. Like Skinner, they need to use next week as a reset and find their mojo again. They are too skilled to be this ineffective on the man advantage.

Their power play hasn’t carried them in any game this season. They’ve yet to score two PP goals in a game. The only real timely PP goal was the one in Ottawa on Tuesday, when they took advantage of the 5-on-3.

Their powerplay used to generate momentum, even when they didn’t score, because they created a lot and added energy to the bench. In too many games this season, it has been a momentum killer. They had a one-goal lead and then got a five-minute power play from the Ryan Reaves hit. Score there and they likely win. Two nights late in Montreal, against a Montreal team that is terrible when playing from behind, the Oilers had three PP chances when the game was 0-0 and couldn’t score. Their PP has really struggled scoring the timely, meaningful goal.

It is probably the biggest surprise early this season. With departures of Vincent Desharnais, Cody Ceci and Philip Broberg (although he only played 12 regular season games) and replacing them with Ty Emberson, Troy Stecher and Travis Dermott, many of us believed the Oilers would struggle defensively. But it has actually been the most consistent element of their team play. They’ve been quite good in limiting shots, and scoring chances.

While the 5×5 scoring, special teams and goaltending have had dips, the overall 5×5 play has been solid. They haven’t been perfect, and I think we all agree the Oilers will add a defender, or two, before the trade deadline, but through the first quarter the 5×5 defensive zone hasn’t been the problem spot many predicted.

It was awful for the first 15 games. Truly awful. They allowed a power play goal in 12 of their first 15 games. They allowed 16 goals on 39 kills for an ugly 59%. However, the PK has found its stride the past six games. They’ve are 100% the past six games having killed off all 13 powerplays. Ty Emberson has played very well since getting an opportunity on the first unit, the group is playing more unified, and the goalies are making more saves. It is a good sign for the second quarter that the PK has stopped leaking goals.

At 10-9-2 it hasn’t been a great start — nor has it been a brutal start, but it has been below the Oilers’ internal standards. They know they have to play better, and four of their five areas haven’t been good enough through the first quarter. Their 5×5 scoring, the power play, penalty kill and goaltending need to improve and be more consistent, and they are capable of it.

Are you concerned, or confident they will round into form?

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