The Edmonton Oilers are currently on a miniature bye week and sit in a tie for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference with an 11-9-2 record. That’s not where the Stanley Cup hopefuls wanted to be at American Thanksgiving.

With just over one-quarter of the season in the books, now is a good time to take a look into what’s working for the Oilers and who needs to be better. After grading the team’s forwards earlier, here are report cards for Edmonton’s seven defencemen and two goaltenders.

Ekholm has been everything the Oilers could have asked for since coming over from the Nashville Predators in a move ahead of the 2022-23 trade deadline. He logs top-pairing minutes, moves the puck effectively, produces offence, kills penalties, and is difficult to play against in his own zone.

This season has been more of the same for the veteran defender, as Ekholm has two goals and ten points over 22 games while playing 23:07 per night on average. The 34-year-old has the best on-ice shot attempt differential of any player on the Oilers and has the third-best on-ice goal differential on the team.

After losing Cody Ceci, Philip Broberg, and Vincent Deshanrias in the off-season, the Oilers needed players on their blueline to step up and take on larger roles and Kulak has done just that. The Stony Plain native has logged 19:14 per night this season for the Oilers, a bump from the 16:27 he averaged between his first two full seasons with the team in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

Kulak has also already surpassed his scoring total from each of the past two seasons with four goals in 22 games. He’s on pace for 30 points, which would shatter the career-high of 21 he set between Edmonton and the Montreal Canadiens in 2021-22. The Oilers are getting excellent value from Kulak at $2.75 million annually.

There have been many polarizing players on the Oilers over the years and perhaps the biggest lightning rod right now is Bouchard. The skilled young defender has a wide range of play from brilliance with the puck to what seems like lethargy at times without it. While frustrating fans with glaring turnovers and some soft play in the defensive zone, Bouchard’s underlying numbers make it clear he’s one of the best blueliners in the NHL.

The grade might seem a little low for a player third on the Oilers in scoring and second in goal differential, but expectations are now much higher for Bouchard. Scoring 82 points and then adding 32 more in the playoffs put the 25-year-old into Norris Trophy talks heading into the season along with speculation about a contract in the range of $10 million annually. He needs to tighten a few things up in order to be a true number-one defenceman.

With a team save percentage of .879 that ranks near the basement of the league, Edmonton’s goaltending situation has again been a hot topic of conversation. The Oilers have been one of the better teams at suppressing shots and high-danger chances at even strength but are 21st in the NHL with 69 goals against.

At a glance, Calvin Pickard’s .893 save percentage appears to show a struggling backup goaltender, but he’s only made one bad start. Since allowing five goals on 20 shots to the Chicago Blackhawks in October, Pickard has a .915 save percentage in six appearances. Nobody can complain about that from a goalie making $1 million.

Nurse is the second of three polarizing players we’ll talk about here. Since signing an eight-year, $74 million contract a few years ago, he’s become the focal point of the conversation around poor salary cap management and has been criticized as the reason why the Oilers can’t afford to ice a better blueline.

Through 19 games this season logging an average of 20:58 per night, Nurse has 10 points and an on-ice goal differential of 9-to-11. It hasn’t been an easy season, as he’s had to bounce from partner to partner without a stable veteran option on his right side. That said, a defender paid $9.25 million annually should be able to carry his own pairing regardless.

The Oilers have three bottom-pairing defenders who have seen opportunities to play alongside Nurse in the top-four and Stecher seems to be the one who’s landed the job for now. Stecher has been Nurse’s most common partner and the duo have been outscored 5-to-2 over 135 minutes at even strength.

Though Stecher is out of his depth in the top-four, the Oilers need someone to eat the minutes that were previously played by Ceci and the former Vancouver Canuck has stepped up. His fight against the Philadelphia Flyers this season was also a spark the team needed to come out of a deep lull.

After Philip Broberg signed an offer sheet with the St. Louis Blues in the summer, the Oilers moved Ceci to the San Jose Sharks for Emberson, a move that was seemingly made to open up the salary cap room needed to match Broberg’s new contract.

Instead, the Oilers let the former first-round pick walk and Emberson was pencilled into a top-four role in Edmonton. The 24-year-old struggled to play on the second pairing with Nurse early in the season but has improved his play alongside Kulak on the third pairing.

Josh Brown was supposed to be the Desharnais replacement as Edmonton’s physical, rugged defensive defender, but the Oilers placed him on waivers before the season and instead signed Travis Dermott, who came to training camp on a professional tryout contract.

The former second-round pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs has no points in ten games and has logged an average of 13:05 per game.

Finally, we have the third polarizing player in this article. After coming into each of the past two seasons as the backup to Jack Campbell and eventually taking the crease, Skinner came into the 2024-25 season as Edmonton’s starting goalie for the first time in his career.

The Edmonton native has struggled to an .882 save percentage over 15 starts, which ranks 42nd in the league among qualified goalies. Skinner got off to a slow start in 2023-24 as well but turned things around and finished the season with a .905 save percentage. The hope was that the 26-year-old would be closer to the .913 mark he posted in 2022-23 this season so this start has been disappointing.

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