The Oilers are not the only team in the NHL that’s been hit by the injury bug. While Edmonton is without their star player and captain, and that’s certainly a big deal, I don’t think Oilers fans are getting much pity from around the league, especially considering what’s going on in Colorado.
How would this top-six look?
Gabriel Landeskog – Ross Colton – Valeri Nichuskin
Jonathan Drouin – Miles Wood – Arturri Lehkonen
Well, those are the six forwards that the Avalanche are currently missing from their lineup. It’s getting ugly in Denver, and help doesn’t really appear to be on the way.
Nichuskin is, at best, 2-3 weeks away from returning to the team, and Gabriel Landeskog’s future is still up in the air. Ross Colton will miss close to two months after blocking a shot.
With all these high-paid players on the IR, the Avalanche can’t really bring in any support either, so they had to resort to playing Oliver Kylington at forward the other night.
They’re 5-6-0 to start the season, which isn’t bad, but they’re basically only winning games when their big guns, Rantanen, MacKinnon, and Makar, are producing at other-worldly levels. If those three aren’t going then they really don’t have much of a chance.
Those three are all scoring at north of 110-point paces with Makar being on pace for 141-points. It’s a little unsustainable.
Their goaltending stinks and even the most diehard of hockey fans wouldn’t be able to name you the 12-forwards they’re dressing on a nightly basis.
That combined with the strength of the Central Divison should have Avs fans worried about whether or not this season is going to get back on the rails.
Now, the Oilers aren’t in much better of a spot. Yes, they’re only missing one player and the timeline for McDavid’s return is not that long but the Oilers are also below .500 and have some pretty tough spots on the schedule over the next few weeks with matchups against the Devils, Golden Knights and Canucks on tap.
Getting off to a slow start has cost the Oilers in multiple ways.
They’ve been forced to go to the line blender a lot more than they would have liked, which I think has made it tough for some of the new faces to get acclimated to the team. They’ve also been somewhat forced to continue switching up their defensive pairings, which I think has hurt the likes of Ty Emberson, who is one of the many Oilers off to a sluggish start.
Still, the idea that this team is cooked without Connor McDavid couldn’t be any less true. Their lineup is still really good.
They still have another elite centreman in Leon Draisaitl and their forward group is littered with players who have scored 25+ goals on a regular basis. In fact, most of their top-six has 30+ goal potential.
They will need to be miles better than they’ve shown through their first ten games of the season but that was needed even with McDavid in the lineup.
Players like Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Adam Henrique and Viktor Arvidsson all need to step up and be much better than they’ve shown so far. I know people will say that they’ve been getting good chances, particularly Hyman, but now is the time to start converting on those looks. 
I do really like the two call-ups that the Oilers made. They need to be quicker and they need to attack with more urgency and I think both Noah Philp and Drake Caggiula can help with that.
For Caggiula, he hasn’t been in the NHL for over 18 months. He should be highly motivated to go and be a spark plug for this team.
As for Noah Philp, I’ve been a massive fan of his dating back to when he was a member of the University of Alberta Golden Bears, where I handle the play-by-play duties.
His story has the chance to turn into one of the best in the NHL.
This is a guy who stepped away from the game for personal reasons and at the time, it felt like it was going to be for good. He’s in a better spot now and even after taking a year off has stepped right back into the lineup and been impactful.
I remember in his final season against the Golden Bears, he missed the entire first half of the season and when he was finally ready to return to the lineup, it was like he never missed any time. He scored eight goals in the final eight regular season games and then in the team’s first playoff game, he racked up four points in the first 20:30 of the game. 
It was 30 seconds into the second period and this guy had his name on the scoresheet four times!
He has all the tools that a team could want in a bottom-six forward. He’s big, he can win draws, he skates well, and he thinks the game at a very high level. Luckily for the Oilers, he also shoots right.
This isn’t a guy who’s cracking the roster of a bottom-feeder like the San Jose Sharks either. He’s earned his way into the lineup of a legitimate Stanley Cup Contender and my prediction? He won’t let go of his roster spot even when the Oilers are back to being fully healthy.
He and Caggiula should be a spark for this team and they need it.
If the Oilers slip hard without McDavid, then they could be in a very similar spot that they were last season. If that happens, could they rebound the same way that they did in 2023-24? Sure, but honestly, I don’t want to find that out.
It’s go-time for the Oilers.

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