Over the last three seasons, the Oilers have been one of the most successful playoff teams in the league.
That might make some of you chuckle because every season has ended in some form of disappointment, but in the last three seasons, only the Florida Panthers have played more total playoff games than the Oilers. In fact, in that stretch, only three teams have a better winning percentage in the playoffs, and they’re the three teams that have won the last three Stanley Cups.
They’ve appeared in nine playoff series during that stretch, which is impressive, even if they haven’t won a Stanley Cup.
It is interesting to compare that to how they’ve fared in the regular season. In that stretch, they’re eighth in points percentage. It’s interesting to see a team that’s had as much playoff success as they’ve had in recent years be outside of the top five in the regular season.
In the Connor McDavid era, they haven’t won their division, haven’t been close to winning the Western Conference, and obviously haven’t gotten close to winning the Presidents Trophy.
Now, your response to all of that might be, “Who cares?” Having a team that wins in the playoffs is way better than having a great regular-season team that constantly falls short of expectations when it matters the most.
My counterpoint to that would be, does the Stanley Cup Final play out any differently if the Oilers had a home-ice advantage?
It’s a question we’ll obviously never know the answer to, but there’s no doubt that every team would rather start a series on home ice. I think a really good goal for the Oilers this season would be to ensure that they can have home ice throughout at least the first few rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, if not the whole thing.
I know that some fans are feeling a little down on the team in the aftermath of the offer sheet drama and I can understand that.
Yes, the Oilers blue line is not as strong as we all thought it would be a few weeks ago with the losses of Philip Broberg and Cody Ceci and the forward group has lost a little bit of upside with Dylan Holloway going to St. Louis.
Those are definitely losses, but I’m not sure if they’re necessarily the devastating blows that some people are making it out to be.
Cody Ceci was an NHL defenseman and during his time with the Oilers, he ate a lot of minutes and stayed remarkably healthy. Those minutes are valuable, but what he brought to the team is not irreplaceable.
Over the last three seasons, Ceci was outscored at 5v5 175-170 (49% GF%) and most of his shot and scoring chance metrics were right around 50%. Again, not terrible but nothing remarkable.
I really do believe that one of Ty Emberson or Troy Stetcher can give the Oilers comparable or potentially much better results next season.
Losing Philip Broberg stings as well, but some seem to be overlooking the fact that he only looked like a legitimate top-four defenseman for a span of ten games. Before that, he was not one of the Oilers six best defensemen and if Troy Stetcher never got hurt, there’s a good chance that we never actually would have seen Broberg in the Stanley Cup Playoffs at all.
Yes, he looked like he was ready to take a big step but just expecting him to be a top-four defenseman on his off side for an entire season was a massive risk.
Going into the season with the blue line as it is definitely has me wincing a little bit, but I think the rest of the Oilers roster is good enough to overcome that one weak spot on their roster.
The forward group is much, much better than it was a year ago today and while some may roll their eyes at the idea of the Oilers just out-scoring their problems, I don’t see that much of an issue with it.
The additions of Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson will definitely offset what they’ve lost with the departure of Warren Foegele and the injury to Evander Kane. They’re better off with the two players they added.
Also, while losing Dylan Holloway sucks, it’s important to remember that he only scored six goals in 38 regular season games last season. He was not a factor for most of the regular season. Vasily Podkolzin will likely be in the lineup for game one of the season and I’m excited to see what he can do with a fresh start. It’s not a guarantee, but there’s definitely some potential there.
They also lost Ryan McLeod, but that is offset by the signing of Adam Henrique, who they only had for roughly 20 games last season.
Also, I think we could see a big step forward from Stuart Skinner. He had a really rough stretch to start the season but one thing that really hurt his game was just how bad the Oilers were on the penalty kill.
In the first month of the season, the Oilers were 72.7% on the PK. That ranked them 27th in the league. By December 1st, they had worked it back to 20th in the league but it was still not good. From December 1st until the end of the season, they were 10th in the league at 80.1%.
How did that affect Skinner?
From the start of the season until December 1st, he had a .898 SV% at 5v5 and a .805 on the penalty kill. From December 1st until the end of the regular season his 5v5 SV% jumped up to .913 and on the penalty kill it jumped up to .875.
The Oilers PK caused a lot of problems early last season and I have a really hard time thinking it will be that poor once again. If the PK is better and Skinner takes a step forward, which isn’t unfair to expect heading into his third full season in the league, then the Oilers should not have another stretch like they did to begin last season.
If they can avoid having a disastrous month then the door is wide open for them to win the Pacific Division, which again, is what I think needs to be done in order for the 2024-25 regular season to be a success.
The Vancouver Canucks already have injury concerns with star goaltender Thatcher Demko and I’m not sure if they got better this summer. At best, I think they simply replaced the pieces they lost.
The Vegas Golden Knights lost Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson and while they will get a full season out of Tomas Hertl, their core is aging and I’m not sure if they’ll be able to contend for the top of the division. They’ll likely be a playoff team, but I don’t think they’re one of the elite teams in the West anymore.
The Los Angeles Kings definitely got worse this summer and once again, I think their ceiling is a wild-card team.
The Seattle Kraken improved but didn’t do enough to push them into the conversation of contending for a division title. They might be a playoff team, but even that feels like a stretch.
After that, it’s a bunch of clubs that are stuck in rebuilds. Shoutout to the Calgary Flames.
The Oilers are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender that gets to play in the worst division in hockey. The expectation should be that they win their division for the first time in over 30 years. On top of that, I think this team is good enough to win the Western Conference and be right in the conversation for the Presidents Trophy.
Last year, I said the regular season would only be interesting if things went horribly wrong for the Oilers. Well, that came true so this year I’m saying this:
The regular season will be very, very fun for Oilers fans because they’ll get to watch their team establish themselves as the best team in the NHL.
