Monday Mailbag – Bold Predictions for the Oilers’ 2023-24 season

Happy Monday, dearest Nation Citizens, and welcome to a fresh edition of the Mailbag to get your week started and keep you up to date on all things Edmonton Oilers. This week, we’re looking at where Connor Brown fits in the lineup, Edmonton’s goaltending, bold predictions, and much more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk and I’ll get to you as soon as we can.

They played nine years ago in junior. They are very different players now and the league is much harder. I expect Woodcroft will try different combinations throughout the season, but considering how little production Puljujarvi and Yamamoto had the past few seasons in the top six, I think Brown will be fine and the coach won’t be too concerned if they don’t have instant chemistry.

What’s the rush? Brown missed an entire season. Let’s see him get up to speed for a stretch of games and then decide where he fits.

I think they’ll get maybe the first 10 games to figure things out. If it doesn’t work initially then Hyman goes back up there, but I’m sure we will see McDavid and Brown together throughout the season.

I don’t think there’s a rush for the Connors to find chemistry together just because they were junior teammates. Brown only played four games last year and it’s going to take him a minute to get up to speed in general, let alone be able to ride with McDavid.

You don’t win the Stanley Cup in the regular season. Their regular season Sv% means very little, to be honest. Adin Hill just posted a .932 SV% in the playoffs. His career regular season Sv% is .910. Here are recent Cup-winning goalies and their Sv%.

Braden Holtby had .922 to lead Washington in 2018.
Jordan Binnington had a .914 for St. Louis in 2019.
Andrei Vasilevskiy had .927 and .937 in 2020 and 2021 for Tampa.
Darcy Kuemper (10 wins) had a .902 and Pavel Francouz (six wins) had a .906.
Hill had a .932 (11 wins).

Colorado was the outlier. It will likely have to be higher than .912sv% for the Oilers to win in the playoffs.

Depends on the Oilers overall defensive play, not just the goaltenders. If Skinner can stay near where he was last season and Campbell can get back up over .900 from .888 and closer to his career mark of .910, the Oilers will be fine.

I would agree with those numbers. It’s all about your goalie getting hot at the right time though. If somebody would’ve told me Adin Hill would be a starting Stanley Cup champion at the start of last season I wouldn’t have believed them. However, he got hot at the right time.

The Oilers need league average goaltending and they’ll be fine. If they can get better than that then we’re laughing, but we can’t be in the .800s again.

The Oilers scored 285  goals (7^th) in 2022 before scoring 325 last year. Since the 2005 lockout, only 11 teams have scored 300+ goals in a season. And seven of those have come in the past two years. Five teams did it in 2022, but only two last year. I see Edmonton scoring 314 goals this season. More importantly, they will lower their goals against from 256 last year down to 235 this season.

I don’t see any reason why they can’t be over 300 again even if the power play cools off and McDavid, Draisaitil, RNH, and Hyman collectively drop off in terms of goals. I don’t see McDavid scoring 64 again and I’d bet the farm RNH doesn’t get 37 and Hyman doesn’t get 36.

340

I’m going to say 305. A lot of things went right last year and I’m not one to assume that the Hockey Gords will be kind two years in a row.

Cody Ceci increases his goal total from one last year to five this season.

Oilers win the Stanley Cup.

Philip Broberg plays top four minutes in the playoffs.

I was going to say Connor Brown scores 25, but I like Robin’s answer way better.

I’d say Oilers v. Toronto. It means they’d be in the Cup, Canada would be guaranteed to end their streak and both fan bases would be on tilt with excitement and nervousness.

Oilers vs. Vegas. Lots of skill and some ill will with these teams.

Calgary because the Battle of Alberta was a great time a couple of years ago.

Edmonton vs. Toronto in the Cup final would burn down the Internet. We all know it. Another Oilers vs. Flames series would be great too.

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