With a 3-0 loss on Sunday night, the Edmonton Oilers fall to a 0-3-0 record at the start of the 2024-25 season. Per TSN’s StatsCentre, the Oilers have tied the 1961-62 Boston Bruins for the worst goal differential recorded by any team through their first three home games in a season in NHL history.
Pretty much everything has gone wrong for Edmonton thus far. Their top guns have failed to produce sufficiently, the bottom six looks old and sluggish, the defence is struggling to move the puck out of their own end efficiently, and they can’t buy enough saves from their goaltenders.
This should all sound quite familiar.
With yet another slow start to a season, it’s deja vu all over again for the Oilers. In 2023-24, Edmonton held a record of 2-9-1 in their twelve games, the worst start in franchise history, ultimately causing a coaching change. So far, the team is on track for a start just as poor, if not worse.
Simply put, this is not excusable. It is incredibly frustrating to see the team fail to start on time, putting themselves into a hole time and time again. It is evident that the team has still yet to learn their lessons.
But, as disappointing as their start has been, I would remain cautious of making overreactions and overly bold statements.
As easy as it may be to hit the panic button, it can’t be ignored that we’ve seen this exact story play out plenty of times.
Two things can be true at once: the Oilers possess numerous areas to improve, but with the assumption that the roster remains healthy, it is nearly a guarantee that they will substantially improve from where they are now.
Following last season’s disastrous 3-9-1 start under their previous coaching staff, Edmonton held a record of 46-18-5 for the remainder of the season, equating to a remarkable 0.703 points percentage that ranked first in the league. As we all know, they would go on to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, losing by just a single goal in Game 7.
There are several similarities to note between the early-season Oilers of 2023-24 and the current Oilers. Here is a glance at their underlying metrics at 5-on-5:
In 2023-24, the Oilers had a strong shot and scoring chance share early on in the season. In fact, they were top-five in the league in these metrics. And yet, they held a brutal record due to just how poor their actual goal differential was.
The statistic on the far-right of this graphic is PDO, a metric often used to evaluate puck luck. It is the sum of a team’s shooting percentage and save percentage.
The league average PDO is exactly 1.00. Some teams with extraordinary finishing and goaltending may consistently sustain a PDO around 1.01 and 1.02, while exceptionally bad teams may hover around 0.98 or 0.99, but aside from sporadic cases, the vast majority of teams will not have a PDO that significantly strays away from that range. The worst PDO by any team in a single season in the NHL analytics era (post-2007) was recorded by the 2012-13 Florida Panthers, who held a 0.97 PDO in a shortened 48-game season.
Right now, the Oilers’ PDO is 0.872.
At 5-on-5, the Oilers currently hold a 2.5 percent shooting percentage and a 0.849 save percentage. For reference, the lowest team shooting percentage of all time is 6.9% by the 2015 Arizona Coyotes, and the worst team save percentage of all time is 0.842 by the 1986 Detroit Red Wings during the high-scoring 80’s.
It’s probably reasonable to say that this Oilers team doesn’t possess the worst finishing and (era-adjusted) goaltending talent of all time. I’d like to think even Edmonton’s harshest critics would agree.
This was a similar case last season. Edmonton’s PDO was incredibly and unsustainably low, and very predictably, they regressed to the mean.
If Edmonton was currently at a league-average PDO, they would have allowed seven goals less, and scored six more, which is pretty significant in three games.
Additionally, I would argue that this current roster has potential to post a higher PDO than last season, where it was 1.001 at the end of the year. Edmonton’s finishing talent is superior to last season’s roster with the additions of Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson, while Stuart Skinner has one additional year of experience. The team’s major departures in the summer (Ryan McLeod, Warren Foegele, Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg and Vincent Desharnais) were not exactly exceptional PDO drivers; if anything, McLeod and Foegele’s inconsistent and streaky finishing hampered Edmonton’s PDO.
Furthermore, perhaps the biggest issue for the Oilers through their first three games is that their top players are not playing like their top players. McDavid has recorded 0 goals and two assists in 3 games, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins have yet to record a single 5-on-5 point, and Evan Bouchard has been far from his best at both ends of the rink. As concerning this may be, I’d argue that, in a way, this is a good thing.
If Edmonton’s top players were at their best and the team was still finding ways to lose games, I would be heavily concerned, but that’s not the case. The team’s leaders have been their greatest disappointments, and we know they will rebound.
Connor McDavid did not magically forget how to score a goal over the summer. Leon Draisaitl’s 0% on-ice shooting percentage at 5-on-5 will not last over the whole season. There may be some mental fatigue here, but the top guys are significantly better than this, and much sooner than later, they will drive the Oilers to victories as they typically do.
Thus, statistically speaking, the possibility of a bounce-back is incredibly high. Granted the team remains healthy, I would have very little worry about their playoff odds.
However, this does not take away from the fact that the team still has a couple of areas of concern.
The first one is an issue that has persisted for a long time: the Darnell Nurse pair. Here are the results of Edmonton’s defensive pairings thus far through the first three games:
The Ekholm – Bouchard pairing has not been at their best, and yet, they are still controlling play at a fantastic rate. Considering how they led all defensive pairs in goal differential in 2023-24, it is extremely likely for them to regress upwards.
As for the second and third pairs, Darnell Nurse and Brett Kulak have played with a rotating cast of defenders including Ty Emberson, Troy Stecher, and Travis Dermott. On the one hand, Kulak’s underlying shot metrics are exceptional; yes, he has been out-scored 3-0 but again, this is unsustainable.
But on the other hand, both Nurse’s goal and expected goal differential are exceedingly poor, as he sits at a ghastly 28 xG%. While he won’t remain at a 0 percent goal differential either, these dreadful underlying metrics are a continuation of his disappointing performance from the 2024 playoffs, which arguably cost them the cup.
It is inevitable that the top and bottom pairings will regress to the mean. It’s worth noting Bouchard had a slow start to the 2023-24 season as well, and we all know how that turned out, as he finished the season fifth in Norris voting and second among all players in playoff points.
But, the struggles of the Nurse pairing are not new at all. While his defensive partners aren’t exactly bonafide top-four defenders, it’s not unreasonable to expect more out of your nine-million-dollar defenceman; at the very least, you would like for him to drive the second-pair to break-even results, and yet he fails to even do that.
For the time being, I would strongly advise the coaching staff to increase Brett Kulak’s minutes, while management must acquire a 2RD by the trade deadline. Heading into the third straight playoffs without a proper second-pair is far too risky.
The second issue I have is Edmonton’s overall puck movement up the ice, namely their zone exits.
This is an area where Edmonton’s age and decreased speed has begun to show, particularly in the bottom-six. I would argue that some of their transitional struggles are simply due to carelessness and complacency, and the current roster will eventually figure it out, but the coaching staff must prioritize significant improvement in this area.
It’s worth noting that the Oilers had issues with breakouts at the beginning of last season as well, and they (generally) solved it in the second half with increased forward support down low and and an emphasis on moving the puck with control through the middle of the ice rather than carelessly flipping it out. Let’s hope the same occurs this season.
Acquiring a legitimate 2RD at the deadline should instantly improve this area, and I’d also look to acquire a young third-line winger who can help Adam Henrique – Edmonton’s third-line center – in this facet. Henrique is a proven producer, but his biggest flaw is his speed and transitional puck-moving; getting him a winger who can efficiently move pucks out of their own end would be a massive help.
Finally, consistent goaltending is also a potential concern.
Now, it’s actually not Stuart Skinner who I’m the most worried about. Recall that, after his brutal start last season (0.868 SV%, -8 GSAx in his first 13 games), Skinner had a fantastic second half of the season. Ever since November 24 2023, Skinner ranked third among all goaltenders last season in GSAx, saving 21 goals above expected and possessing a 0.915 save percentage. Of course, he has to improve his consistency and avoid having such tough stretches like this, but we’ve seen a significant bounce back from him before.
In a perfect world, the team has a better starter than Skinner, but how many bonafide starting goalies superior to Skinner are available at the moment? And most importantly, would they be worth the potential trade cost?
Personally, my bigger concern is the backup. The simple fact is that Calvin Pickard’s sample size of strong play is not incredibly huge. He played 23 games last year, posting above-average metrics, but prior to that, he was primarily an AHL goaltender/third string net-minder.
I feel it would be much more preferable to have a more reliable backup with a proven history, someone that can considerably lighten Skinner’s workload and provide as insurance if/when Skinner has one of his tough stretches. Skinner played nearly 60 games last year, and heading into the 2025 playoffs, it would be best to reduce that number. I believe Skinner works best as the “1A” in a goaltending tandem as opposed to a 60+ game starter.
All things considered, the sky is not falling. If the team remains healthy, they will make it into the playoffs, and even without a single roster change, they remain a legitimate contender.
However, the big question is whether they can go all the way or not this season and win the cup, and for that to happen, there are multiple key areas of their game that must see substantial improvement.
*All stats via Natural Stat Trick and EvolvingHockey unless stated otherwise
Find me on Twitter (@NHL_Sid)
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