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Sunday Scramble: A year from hell for the Oilers? World Junior excitement, and a case for a new playoff format

Photo credit: Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn Images

By Michael Menzies

Dec 21, 2025, 14:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 21, 2025, 14:28 EST

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There is part of me that wonders whether this is a “year from hell” season for the Edmonton Oilers.

I’ve lifted the term from longtime columnist and now podcaster extraordinaire Bill Simmons, who you may know from The Ringer.

The term “year from hell team” comes up often in NFL discussions and characterizes a team with championship aspirations, but injuries or off-the-field issues plague them.

The Oilers’ injury luck this year has been downright rotten.

This was a big season for Jake Walman to solidify himself as an every-night top-four defenceman. It’s a huge opportunity for Jack Roslovic, who was seizing it and at times was the Oilers’ best forward, until his painful injury to the jingle bells. Kasperi Kapanen was close to returning, then re-aggravated his injury at practice. The pleasant sparkplug of Connor Clattenburg has had swelling so bad near his eye that he can’t exercise too hard or he’d be at further risk, and landed on the LTIR Sunday.

On the bright side, McDrai have remained upright, and as long as they do, Edmonton has a puncher’s chance in every hockey game they play.

But then there’s the goaltending…

A Jarr(y)ing situation

General manager Stan Bowman rolled the dice to acquire Tristan Jarry, and within two-and-a-half games, Jarry is on the shelf. Injury timeline TBD.

Luckily, after tonight, there’s just one more game to go until a brief reprieve for Santa. If there’s any bit of solace, it’s that Jarry wasn’t instantly placed on LTIR, but it’s still a nightmare scenario for the Oilers.

As we know, the dialogue around a goalie trade weeks ago hinged around improving the overall goaltending, aka a 1-2 punch with Stu Skinner as the backup to a new starter. That didn’t happen and now it’s Calvin Pickard and the abrupt, but required, call-up of Connor Ingram.

I’m not going to crucify this backfiring on Bowman so quickly because we don’t know a prognosis on Jarry, and a lateral slide across the crease leading to a lower-body injury is out of Bowman’s control.

However, I did find the full chorus of analysts explaining how Jarry’s injury history was not a concern – in fact, overblown or downright not true – quite ironic considering how quickly he got banged up.

Hopefully he returns soon and this is no big deal…unless it lingers…and Jarry becomes day-to-day consistently…and then what?

Every arrow points towards the Buffalo Sabres and Alex Lyon as reports from Elliotte Friedman suggest Bowman has called multiple times.

New GM Jarmo Kekäläinen is a shrewd man. Sure, Colten Ellis is practicing again, but why would he trade Lyon, instead of granting Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen his earlier request to get out of Buffalo?

I worry any additional goalie trade is going to be uncomfortable in terms of what the Oilers give up. I’m not convinced Mattias Janmark would waive, or David Tomášek moves the needle. They already – in my opinion – made a bad trade objectively in value for assets with the Jarry deal. I said that last week, that’s not revisionist history. It could be a deal for a draft choice, but how good a pick does Kekäläinen want?

I have a funny feeling Kekäläinen’s first move isn’t going to be a helping hand to Edmonton, unless the Oilers make it worth his while.

How much is Bowman willing to give up to make a second goalie trade for his team that might not be good enough to win a championship even when everyone is healthy? Even worse, does he have a choice?

The Ingram factor

That sets up a matchup tonight of Connor Ingram vs. Carter Hart.

Ingram’s numbers in the AHL have been poor, but it’s no surprise he was chosen to be the call-up. His acquisition always came with the fleeting hope he could find himself again, and re-establish his game to the level he was at 2023-24, where he had a brilliant (in Oilers terms) save percentage of .907.

It hasn’t gone that way in the American League, but circumstances dictate it’s time for a look, whether he has a .857 save percentage in Bakersfield or not.

The Oilers will need one of those dialled-in defensive efforts against Vegas as opposed to a lackadaisical one we saw lead to mistakes vs the Wild, and another no-show vs the Canadiens a week ago.

In this truncated season, the Oilers’ record in the second game of a back-to-back is 0-3-3. With that said, it was a good week for Calvin Pickard. We know he’s capable of a heater.

No more east for Oil

There were portions of the road trip that featured some of the Oilers’ best hockey, particularly the Bruins game on Thursday.

While the Leafs and Penguins games were fun for different reasons, the effort against a team that was a win out of 1st place in their division has raised the stakes, so I was impressed with the overall game vs Boston.

That victory, especially after Jarry went down, showed the character and resolve the Oilers have when they are on their game.

However, that attention to detail away from the puck is fleeting game by game. We simply don’t know what to expect consistently, evidenced by another chance and failing to win their third straight game Saturday. Oilers hockey personified.

I do think the Oilers are much more the team we’ve seen after the marathon November road trip than before it. They boast a 7-4-1 record since then.

All the home games await in January and some big divisional matchups too. They will get players back. They will not go to the Eastern Conference again. If nothing else, this is a reminder how much an NHL regular season is about the ability to endure.

Oilers record this week: 2-2
Oilers road trip record: 3-2
Oilers road record overall: 9-10-3
Oilers record vs Pacific: 3-1-2

Upcoming schedule:

Home vs VGK tonight
Home vs CGY Tuesday
Away vs CGY Saturday

Thrown under the plane

Hopefully this is the last time I write about Stuart Skinner, but one more thing.

Penguins coach Dan Muse must’ve had a journalism background, because starting him vs. the Oilers was about storyline more than giving his team the best chance to win.

Protecting their new goalie and starting Arturs Silovs made way more sense to this lowly writer, considering the visa issues and late arrivals by both Skinner and Kulak in getting across the border.

It didn’t seem like a fair spot for him for his first game. However, in my job capacity, it was a dream storyline game.

Nevertheless, it’s going to be dark days for the Pens. Their start to the season was smoke and mirrors and now they’ve lost eight in a row, incapable of holding leads, or coming back from deficits. That’s a nasty combo.

Tournament time

Excited for the World Juniors yet?

The tournament kicks off Friday and Canada will play Czechia, who ousted them last year from medal contention, right out of the gates.

In terms of draft intrigue, Gavin McKenna has been quiet in the NCAA this year, leading some to wonder whether he could actually be passed over with the first overall pick for defenceman Keaton Verhoeff.

Unfortunately, his biggest highlight so far is a lowlight, after an unfortunate own-goal against Sweden in a pre-tournament tuneup Saturday night.

The bottom line is Canada needs to medal. Back-to-back 5th place finishes speaks ill of our country and the true talent we can produce. But it also speaks to the fact that the world has caught up.

Other than Czechia, Canada’s group features Finland, Denmark, and Latvia. I will add this, the tournament’s intrigue would go up if Russia was involved.

In terms of a local angle, Adam Jecho and Maxmillan Curran, both stalwarts on the Edmonton Oil Kings, were named to Czechia’s roster. Oil Kings teammate Ethan MacKenzie is one of the blueliners who will wear the maple leaf for Canada.

Danault is going home

Agent Provocateur Allan Walsh’s tweet denying that Phillip Danault wanted a trade out of Los Angeles, only to be traded a day or two later, is peak spin-job agent stuff from Walsh.

Danault is mired in a mile-long goal-scoring drought that has plagued his season. No goals in 30 games and just five assists for a player who has had a decreasing goal total for four straight seasons. Remember, he scored just eight in 80 games a year ago.

Of course, the strongest aspect of his game has been the defensive shutdown role, checking the likes of Connor McDavid in four straight playoff series.

But you gotta wonder if Danault is no longer a two-way dynamo and simply a bottom-six centre who specializes in defence. Despite only having five points, he’s still +3, which is very hard to do.

He’ll help the Montreal Canadiens, who are giving up far too many chances and goals against, and can spare a 2nd round pick. The Atlantic Division is so silly, the Habs could just as easily win the group or finish well out of the playoff picture.

Meanwhile, the Kings are loser-point merchants, having won just 15/34 games this year, but nine of them in overtime and a shootout. They cling and grind and hang on to get their points, because they’ve scored just a 31st-best 88 goals. Danault’s removal for nothing on the current roster will only hurt their goals against, which is what’s keeping them afloat.

Format refresh

Changing the NHL playoff format back to a ranked 1-8 by conference is a no-brainer move that I think excites fans way more than these rote matchups we get season after season.

I say this because the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota are the first, second, and third best teams in the NHL right now, and all play in the Central Division, essentially pre-ordaining a playoff matchup already in December.

I liked the dice roll move by Guerin and they haven’t lost since acquiring Quinn Hughes. Coincidentally, the Canucks haven’t lost since the trade, either.

But if commissioner Gary Bettman is so enamoured with parity, why not give the fans parity in playoff matchups?

This divisional matchup style has been in place since 2013-14, which makes it one of the longest standing playoff formats in NHL history, just as long as the old Smythe, Norris, Adams, and Patrick Division style used from 1981-82 to 1992-93. (There was a change in 85-86 making the first round a best-of-seven).

A purely ranked, top eight teams in each conference makes the playoffs format, creates new matchups and rivalry opportunities. It’s more exciting – plain and simple. It also rewards good regular season teams, like the Minnesota Wild are becoming, to playing a team that is inferior in their first round, like they should.

The closest the league’s come to having a scenario where the league’s top three teams by points were in the same division was in 2016-17. Washington, Pittsburgh, and Columbus finished 1-2-4 overall in points, respectively, and I thought the Jackets got a raw deal.

Not that the hockey world cares by and large about CBJ, nor were the Jackets Bettman’s baby like Vegas, but they would’ve played Ottawa instead, who eventually played the Pens in the conference final.

I liked that Columbus team, easily their best in franchise history. Instead, their claim to fame will be beating the then record-setting Tampa Bay Lightning in 2019…

ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365

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