By the time the final buzzer went in a big Edmonton Oilers victory over the New York Rangers on Saturday night, the team sat in the playoff picture.
Not by much, holding onto just the second Wild Card spot, but well within striking distance of the Pacific Division lead. That’s good news for a team that seemed to be falling apart at the seams weeks earlier. The bad news is they entered their bye week, meaning five days of no games and time for opposing teams to climb overtop of them, or extend the leads they already have.
Different parts of their game can easily be pointed to when their struggles have been brought up, maybe a few more dastardly than a suddenly anemic power play, a top-six — beyond two superstars — struggling to score, and goaltending that, to put it lightly, has stunk.
Oilers general manager Stan Bowman knows all of this, though, setting some markers for where he wants to see his club in the not-so-distant future during an interview with Sportsnet’s Mark Spector.
“We want to win the division, and that’s something we’ve been clear about,” Bowman said to Spector in an interview. “We’re not where we want to be, but we’re within striking distance of that.“Over the next 20 games … I’d like to see the things we’ve done well to sustain.”
And the issues that plague the Oilers? Well, some of them have left Bowman perplexed.
“Nervous is not really how I’m looking at it,” said Bowman, when posed with questions about the quartet of Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson that’s scored 11 goals in 80 man games played. “But more like, it’s weird. We’ve got such poor production from those players, and if you look at the numbers under the numbers (the analytics), we’re doing a lot of good things. We should be scoring a lot more goals.
“I’d be a little bit more worried if we weren’t generating much. We are, but we’re getting chances that we’re not converting, which has never really been a problem. It’s not a tiny sample. It’s 20 games. I kept saying in the beginning, ‘This is going to even out. It’s going to have to, because we’re doing so many things well.’ But it hasn’t yet. So certainly in the next 20 you have to see those guys start converting.”
Sound in his belief this team can and will be better, Bowman went to bat for his blueline in the interview with Spector. It’s a group, after all, that looks noticeably different than this time last year. All of Philip Broberg, Vincent Desharnais and Cody Ceci departed for new teams, with a re-signed Troy Stecher, Travis Dermott, and Ty Emberson all coming into town.
Examining this year’s numbers vs. last year’s through the team’s first 22 games, Edmonton’s defensive metrics have improved. Not by much, mind you, but they’re allowing .45 fewer goals against per hour, and most notably, have reduced their scoring chances against rate by 1.98 per hour, their high danger chances against rate by 1.8 per hour, and their high danger goals against rate by 1.08 per hour — the latter three being significant changes. The issue? Well, their goaltending has been worse, with their team save percentage dipping by .49 percent, to an .874 rate.
“Maybe on paper (the defence) doesn’t look great, but when you look at actually the way they perform they’ve done a pretty good job,” Bowman said. “We don’t give up a ton of opportunities — and our overall team deserves a little credit for … helping our D out. I think our D has been fine.”
It’s all left Bowman in a place in the middle, saying “I wouldn’t say I’m panicked. But I’m also not pleased. I’m sort of in the middle, where I think we can do things better.”
Bowman will have options for this roster as the season winds on. The trade market is beginning to take shape, with six smaller deals taking place since the season kicked off, and more names will surely come available between now and March 7th’s trade deadline.
It’s up to him and the front office, however, to determine where their ammunition is best spent.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
