Good morning, everyone, and a happy Monday to you all. As per tradition, I’ve got a brand new mailbag set to go after taking your questions and sending them to the crew for their takes. This week, we’re discussing whether the Oilers miss Paul Coffey, the current coaching staff, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ injury, and more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk, and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

I really don’t think that much. The team simply has played too inconsistent. We’ve seen games, or parts of games, where they’ve been very good defensively. They had a sluggish start with him on the bench last year as well.

I mean, the blue line has been struggling since he left so I think it’s fair to say that they miss him a little bit. Is the blueline only struggling because he’s gone? I wouldn’t go that far. They have some players who are playing uncharacteristically poor, like Brett Kulak, and I just think that eventually they’ll find their form. This blueline got them to the Stanley Cup Final last season and I don’t think the fall off should have been this drastic just a few months later.

They probably miss his voice more than anything. Whenever he made an appearance on the Oilers show via Oilers+ he wasn’t afraid to hold back his thoughts and didn’t sugarcoat anything. He had a confidence about him and swagger that the rest of the coaching staff probably lacked. Tactically, I’m not sure how much of an impact he had, but I remember him saying at the start of his tenure behind the bench that he wanted all his defencemen to be able to play the puck.

I did an appearance on Sports 1440 with Kevin Karius last week, where I was asked a similar question. My answer there was my answer here: “If we’re really sitting here and being like ‘Paul Coffey is the answer to all the problems that the Oilers are facing right now,’ I think we got way bigger problems with this team than we all want to really talk about right now… If that’s what it takes, then that’s pretty indicative of this defensive group and this team as a whole.”

I think it’s kinda funny we’re talking about Paul Coffey because the Oilers’ defence was just as bad to start off the last two years. How quickly we forget. That said, do the Oilers miss him? I can’t say because I’m not allowed in the room, but if I were to guess, I’d say probably a little bit given how tight they look while defending right now.

It is a concussion. It is a minimum of a week, and with a concussion, it is impossible to predict what it will be. That being said, he isn’t the only one who was stated to be out a certain time and it ended up being longer. It seems they give the best-case scenario every time, but that rarely happens. Not a smart look.

Honestly, I have no idea. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that some players are just taking longer than they had hoped to return to the lineup, but the fact that this seems to happen every single time a player gets hurt is a little bit annoying. Why not just be honest? And no, this has nothing to do with sports betting or anything like that. I hate that narrative.

It’s quite odd how the Oilers handle injuries with the media. It seems they always want to be tight lipped with everything. I imagine with certain injuries timelines do change depending on the severity and recovery. Everyone recovers quicker or slower.

Kris Knoblauch has been far too vague with injuries for years, and I think it’s an issue beyond just the Oilers, too. My theory is that teams think it gives some kind of edge for their team or something, when there’s very few players who would have such an impact on individual games.

It drives me nuts. We’ve basically reached the point where I don’t believe anything the organization says publicly about this kind of stuff. Last year, Viktor Arvidsson was supposed to be out for a week and ended up missing a month. This year, November 1st was the target for Zach Hyman, but he didn’t play until mid-month. Why lie? Who knows.

Coach can’t get players ready to play. Players do. I’ve always thought that was BS. Woodcroft was fired for much more than that. Also, EDM is tied for 13^th in scoring first. Just above average, so I wouldn’t even look at being ready as the issue. They’ve blown leads in second and third more.

They certainly are eating a bit of the blame pie, but it’s not the majority of it. I think at times there should be more accountability, and I hate how often Knoblauch went to the blender early in the season, but the bottom line is that they have players who are underperforming in all areas of their lineup, most importantly, goaltending, and that’s costing them games. They really haven’t had more than one or two nights where they seemed to be firing on all cylinders.

I think the coaching staff did everything they needed to do to have this team ready to play. In the same breath I think they were still trying to figure out who plays well with who, when you look at the forward group specifically, you only have about five-six forwards who played regularly in the 24/25 season (RNH, Draisaitl, McDavid, Henrique, Hyman, Podkolzin) . The forward group specifically has a lot of turnover. Also, let’s remember they didn’t have Walman for a few games and just got Hyman back from injury. I’m curious how they’ll play once they have a lineup full of healthy veterans.

Some of it is on the coaching staff, for sure. They are required to implement game plans and plans of attack, but it’s also on the players to step up and play. The line shuffling is an issue, but the players need to step up.

I blame him 1000% for the endless line combinations and constantly going back to McDavid with Draisaitl when things are going sideways. But I also don’t think they’re teaching the guys to give up pucks at the blue lines, the goalies to miss saves, or the team to not shoot from the slot, but what the hell do I know?

I honestly have no idea. But they don’t have a lot of muck and grinders. That isn’t their main identity and it has them dominating the West the past few years. They also didn’t have Hyman for the first 15 games, so he brings more of it. But they seem to use it more in the playoffs than in the regular season. They just seem to be a slow-starting group.

The fatigue of going on long playoff runs jumps out to me. It was less than six months ago that they were battling for a Stanley Cup every second night, and I think getting dialled back in for early-season games is tough. I wish it wasn’t the case, but the fact this is happening again certainly makes you think.

It’s the question we’re all wondering. I’d say the losing eventually gets to them and it lights a fire under their asses, especially when they realize they won’t have a lot of runway if this continues. Losing sucks, and right now I feel it’s a team trying to figure out its identity especially on defence. They’ve lacked a certain structure that we saw during much of the postseason.

That’s the million dollar question. I do agree they play their best when emotionally engaged, and we saw it again on Saturday against Florida. I’d like to see that a lot more often.

Good question. I don’t know why it takes until we’re almost in December for the boys to get going, but that’s been the way it is for three seasons in a row now. I wish we had the answer, not only for the wins, but also so we could stop talking about this every year.

Each season is new, and some players struggle. The key for him will be to get out of this funk. I thought the past two games he played better, so that is a positive sign, but he clearly is lacking a bit of confidence, as his decisions with and without the puck are below what we normally see.

I have no idea, but it’s ugly. He’s gone from a reliable defenceman who can easily handle 20+ minutes a night to a guy that is playing at well below replacement level. I love the player, but given he’s a UFA and one of the few players without trade protection, I’m worried he might be playing his way off this team.

Brett Kulak has yet to miss a single game for the Oilers since being acquired in 21/22. That’s including playoffs. Since that season, only core players like Bouchard, Nurse, McDavid, Draisaitl, RNH and Hyman have played more minutes than him. He’s a warrior, a battler and eventually it catches up to you. I don’t want to say it’s the sole reason why he’s been a step behind. But he has put his body through a lot over the last number of years. It’s cliche but he probably knows how poor he’s been and he likely knows he has another level to reach.

There were some warts in his game last year, especially in the playoffs when he was having to play on his offside, but the drop off has been significant. Could the aging curve be hitting him early?

Theory: He was abducted and replaced with a body double. Reality: Who knows? It’s wild.

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