The 2024-25 regular season has come to an end, and Game 1 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs for the Edmonton Oilers is less than 48 hours away.
For yet another season, the Oilers will be playing the Los Angeles Kings in the first round. Edmonton defeated Los Angeles in seven, six, and five games in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 playoffs respectively, and they now look to beat them for the fourth consecutive time.
But, for the first time in the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl era, the Oilers will not possess home-ice advantage in the first round, as they finished third place in the Pacific Division behind the Kings (2nd) and the Vegas Golden Knights (1st). It’s been a roller-coaster of a season with various ups and downs for the Oilers, and for once, the team may not be the clear-cut favourites in this series.
Without further ado, here are what I believe are the five most significant question marks facing the Oilers for this postseason.
*All data via EvolvingHockey and Natural Stat Trick unless stated otherwise
How will the Oilers navigate through and respond to their injury situation?
Jun 21, 2024; Edmonton, Alberta, CAN; Edmonton Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm (14) during the first period against the Florida Panthers in game six of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place. Mandatory Credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
Ever since the Four Nations tournament, it has seemed that the Oilers just couldn’t catch a break with all their injuries.
The most notable injury situation for the team is Mattias Ekholm, who is guaranteed to miss at least the first round of the playoffs, if not even longer. The addition of Jake Walman at this year’s trade deadline alongside the improvement in Darnell Nurse’s play this season could offset some of that loss, but regardless, the hole left by Ekholm is a big one to fill, particularly defensively.
With contract negotiations looming, these playoffs will be a massive test for Evan Bouchard. This will be his opportunity to conclusively prove that he can indeed drive his own pairing in a difficult environment.
Additionally, these playoffs will be the first true opportunity for trade deadline acquisition Trent Frederic in Edmonton. He had been dealing with an ankle injury since before his trade to Edmonton from the Boston Bruins, and missed the following few weeks after the trade deadline. Frederic started in a regular-season game against the Kings on April 5, which was supposed to be his Oilers debut, but he wound up reaggravating his ankle injury a mere six seconds into his very first shift with the team.
While nothing is official as of now, Frederic could be available for the Oilers in Game 1. Hopefully, he is, as his forechecking could be a great asset against this team.
Though Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are confirmed to be in the lineup for Game 1, it must also be mentioned that they also sustained injuries in March. This is especially worth noting as, after Edmonton’s Game 7 loss in the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals, it was reported that McDavid played through a significant abdominal injury in those playoffs, while Draisaitl may have also been dealing with a broken rib and finger.
Draisaitl did not end up scoring a single goal in the 2024 Cup Finals. Of course, every NHL playoff team will have numerous players playing through injuries, but you can’t help but think of how that series could have turned out if Draisaitl were healthy. Hopefully, both of Edmonton’s two superstars are truly at full health for Game 1 and continue to be throughout the playoffs.
Can the Oilers continue their dominant special teams from the 2024 playoffs?
In the 2024 playoffs, the Oilers’ 5v5 goal share wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring, as they finished with a mere +1 differential, scoring 53 goals for and allowing 52 goals against. And yet, they still reached the cup finals, largely due to their outstanding +21 special teams differential.
On the power-play, the Oilers scored at an excellent rate of 11.5 goals per hour, not allowing a single short-handed goal against. On the penalty-kill, the Oilers allowed a mere 1.89 goals against, which was not just lower (i.e. better) than every other team’s goals-against rates on the PK but also at 5-on-5 (!). They did this while additionally scoring three critical short-handed goals. Overall, the PK was perhaps the biggest surprise for the Oilers in that run.
In the 2024-25 regular season, the Oilers’ special team results have been a mixed bag. The Oilers’ PP has averaged 8.97 goals per hour this season, good for tenth in the league. Though this is comfortably above average, it still isn’t nearly as dominant as it was in the prior two seasons. As for the penalty-kill, they have allowed 7.99 goals against per hour, ranking 18th in the league, or slightly below-average.
Considering the structure of this team, simply average or even above-average special teams likely won’t cut it for another deep playoff run. If the Oilers want to return to the Cup Finals, their special teams must return to their dominant levels from the prior postseason.
How will the bottom-six fare?
In the 2024 playoffs, the Oilers did have some strong performances from their bottom-six forwards, particularly Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark, but most of their value came on the PK. At 5-on-5, the Oilers’ bottom-six performance was far from satisfactory.
Without McDavid and Draisaitl, the Oilers were out-scored 12 to 21, a brutal 36 percent goal differential. In the prior three postseasons, it still remained at 29%, 45%, and 41%, respectively. For reference, each of the Cup-winning NHL teams since 2016 has produced at least a 51% goal differential without their top-two centres, and some teams even reached 60-70%.
The Oilers don’t need some overly spectacular performance from their depth forwards; even a net-even goal differential is likely more than sufficient. If Edmonton’s bottom-six can simply maintain a ~50% goal differential, and if both McDavid and Draisaitl are healthy, I could easily see this Oilers team going quite far.
Will Edmonton improve their finishing?
In terms of generating scoring chances, the Oilers have been the best team in the league in that regard over the past three years, but their goals scored above expected rate ranks second last. This was on display in the Stanley Cup Finals.
In those finals, recall that the Oilers lost Games 1, 2 and 7. They allowed 7 non-empty-net goals in those three games, and so they weren’t awful defensively. But, they only scored two goals, which was the primary cause of their ultimate defeat. Natural Stat Trick’s model had the team at roughly eight expected goals in those three games, accumulating to a total of 28 high-danger chances, and yet they only wound up scoring twice on Sergei Bobrovsky.
If there’s one thing that I’m confident about, it’s that the Oilers will continue to generate a large number of high-quality scoring chances in these playoffs, but whether they manage to consistently capitalize on them will be an entirely different question, dependent on several factors.
One of those factors will be Evander Kane. If Kane has successfully recovered from his injuries, perhaps he could be a very useful scoring forward for the team in the correct role.
Jeff Skinner’s deployment will also be important here. Skinner ranks as Edmonton’s third most efficient finisher this season, and although it’s been quite evident that Kris Knoblauch has not been the biggest fan of Skinner’s all-around play this season, the Oilers will need him if they want to improve their finishing and scoring efficiency.
What version of Stuart Skinner will the Oilers see?
All things considered, perhaps the most significant question for the Oilers will be their goaltending, and particularly the performance of Stuart Skinner.
In the aggregate, Skinner’s results over the past three seasons seem solid. In that timespan, Skinner has saved nearly 40 goals above expected, ranking 11th in the league. For a $2.6M goalie, how much more can you really ask for?
But the issue with Skinner is his wild inconsistency.
On the one hand, we have seen several stretches where Skinner was more than good enough for the Oilers to win. In particular, he was outstanding against the Dallas Stars in the 2024 Western Conference Finals, particularly in the clinching Game 6. But on the other hand, Skinner nearly single-handedly cost the Oilers the second round of those playoffs against the Vancouver Canucks, and he was a significant factor in their loss to the Vegas Golden Knights the year prior. Of course, every goalie in the NHL will have both good and bad stretches of play, but few of them have stretches with such high variance.
The Oilers have proven that they don’t need elite, Vezina-level net-minding to win games. All they require is consistently average to above-average level of play.
Can Skinner finally provide that for the Oilers this time around? Only time will tell.
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