The Edmonton Oilers continue to pile up victories, winning their ninth-consecutive game last night in Detroit, but this isn’t the first time this group has played this well. They won their final nine games last season, and their quest for ten was stopped due to the schedule. They didn’t get a chance to set the record last April, but they will tomorrow in Montreal, and based on the goal celebrations last night of Zach Hyman and the overtime winner by Darnell Nurse, it is clear this team wants the record.

As they should.

Ten-game winning streaks are difficult, especially for Western-based teams (more on that below). The Oilers are one of seven NHL franchises without a 10-game winning streak, and in the 100+ year history of the NHL we’ve seen a total of 63 winning streaks of 10+ games. Each subsequent victory becomes rarer. There have been 31 streaks of 11+ games, 18 streaks of 12+ and eleven winning streaks of 13 games. The 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins set the NHL record at 17 games.

The Oilers are hoping to reach double digits for the first time in franchise history tomorrow in Montreal, and considering how dominant they’ve been lately, it seems very plausible. It would be a great birthday present for Connor McDavid. The Oilers captain turns 27 tomorrow and knowing how competitive he is, a win is what he’d want most. The players know the record is there for the taking, and their recent run has put them within striking distance of the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights in the Pacific division.

They’ve closed the gap considerably on Los Angeles. Their 17-3 record since November 24th has them three points behind the Kings. They are tied in regulation wins, and actually have one more than Vegas, who is eight points ahead, but Edmonton and LA have four games in hand.

As outlined earlier, ten-game winning streaks are rare across the NHL. There have been 63 all time, but only 17 have come from teams in the Western Conference. Travel has to be one factor. Here is a list of each franchise’s 10-game winning streak with their longest followed by the total number of 10+ game streaks in their history, and the most recent year they won ten in a row. Boston (9), Pittsburgh (6) and Montreal (5) account for 31.7% of all 10+ game streaks.

The Oilers aren’t the only team on a heater. The Florida Panthers have won nine in a row, while Winnipeg set a new franchise record with their eighth-consecutive win last night, and Seattle tied their franchise best with their eighth-consecutive win. There is a chance we could see four 10-game winning streaks ongoing at the same time if the Oilers (@MTL), Panthers (v. NJ), Kraken (@CBJ) and Jets (v. PHI) win tomorrow, and then Seattle defeats the Rangers on Monday and the Jets beat the Islanders.

The most ten-game winning streaks in one season in the NHL is four, set in 2017 and 2022. In 2017, three of them overlapped each other.

Philadelphia won ten in a row between November 27th to December 14th.

Columbus won 16 consecutively from November 29th to January 3rd.

Minnesota won 12 in a row between December 4th to December 29th.

Tomorrow will be exciting for the Oilers and their fans as they try to make history.

For years, one of the main criticisms in Edmonton was the Oilers relied too much on Connor McDavid, and to a slightly lesser extend Leon Draisaitl. It was a valid concern, but the Oilers are more balanced offensively now, and they’re really tightened up defensively.

One of the most overlooked factors about this edition of the Oilers is how less reliant they are on McDavid to carry them offensively. He’s still elite, of course, but he doesn’t have to handle the burden of carrying them offensively every game. During this nine-game winning streak McDavid has 15 points. The Oilers have scored 37 goals, meaning he’s factored in on 40.5% of them. Here’s a look at the top-1o scorers in the game and the % of their team’s goals they’ve produced.

Nikita Kucherov 49.2% (69 of 140).
Nathan MacKinnon 43.8% (67 of 153).
Artemi Panarin 43.6% (58 of 133).
David Pastrnak 42.2% (57 of 135).
McDavid 41.8% (56 of 134).
William Nylander 41% (57 of 139).
Sam Reinhart 40.4% (53 of 131).
JT Miller 35.3% (58 of 164).
Elias Pettersson 34.7% (57 of 164).
Mikko Rantanen 34.6% (53 of 153).

McDavid is always going to be over 40%, because he produces so many points, but so far this season, the Oilers — who are now the sixth-highest scoring team in the NHL — aren’t leaning on him as much offensively. Since Kris Knoblauch took over the Oilers are second in the NHL in goals/game at 3.96 and sixth best in goals against/game at 2.60. They still score a lot, but they’ve significantly reduced their goals against. Like the winning streak, we saw this last year, and over the past two months they’ve proven they can play sound defensive hockey, while still being a threat offensively.

Great offence, sound defence and consistent goaltending is why you should expect the Oilers to become the 26th franchise in NHL history to win 10 games in a row.

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