The Edmonton Oilers come into this season as the favourites to win the Stanley Cup, not a surprise considering the success the team had last year, coming within one game of etching their names on the cup. The Oilers are entering the season under perhaps the most pressure they have ever felt.
Before winning the cup they have to make the playoffs though, something that nobody is really worried about considering the teams success last year and what are certainly perceived as improvements to the team this offseason. Just how much did the Oilers improve? Are they in line for the Presidents Trophy? Or will they fall short of the great expectations laid on their shoulders?
In this week’s Sunday Census, we left it up to Oilers fans to vote on how many wins they thought the Oilers could muster this coming regular season.
Want to take part in Sunday Census polls? We send them out every week on our Twitter at @oilrigEDM. Follow along or send in ideas for the next poll!
A season repeated
As the Oilers won 49 games last year, half of the voters felt that the Oilers would fall in the same range as again, a very solid 46 to 50 wins, this was good enough for ninth in the league and second in the Pacific Division. This is the same kind of thinking employed by the oddsmakers, who use recent history as the best predictor of the future. However, this year the over/under on Oilers points has been set at 108.5 which would likely place them in the 50+ wins range.
This result was a little surprising since the prevailing opinion on the Oilers is that they got better in the offseason, and people have a tendency to have a lot of hope for their favourite team before the season starts.
The Oilers have finished in this range for the past three years despite the major additions of Zach Hyman, Mattias Ekholm, and Evader Kane, as well as the emergence of Evan Bouchard last year. For that reason, maybe the additions of Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, and the first full season of Adam Henrique shouldn’t cause people to expect a major increase in wins.
While the Oilers would rather finish well atop the league, shattering the 50-win mark, a 46 to 50 win season would all but ensure a playoff spot and that’s good enough.
A Presidents Trophy race
The next most popular option was the 50+ wins category, taking 27.8% of the vote. I freely admit that this is where I sit.
The Oilers won 49 games last year, so they would only need two more to break the 50 win mark and I think the offseason additions mentioned above count for two more wins. There is no certainty of the newcomers performing as hoped or even expected, but if the first two lines can have just average seasons, they will be one of the best top six in the league. The offensive pressure that the Oilers were able to exert last year will become even more exhaustive and most teams don’t have the defensive depth to deal with that.
The changes on defence are a question mark but I personally don’t see it as any worse. The Oilers may make a return to their 80’s style of play, it didn’t matter if they surrendered five, they would plot eight.
A disastrous collapse
The next most popular answer was the 35 to 40 win range, at 12.5%, which would essentially guarantee that they miss a playoff spot. The only teams in that range to make the playoffs last year were the New York Islanders and the Washington Capitals, and the Caps only advanced by the tenuous thread holding Alex Ovechkin’s shirt buttons in place. While there are teams with far worse records than this, a year after making the Stanley Cup Final, this would mark disaster for the star studded Oilers.
While this section may have been inundated by Calgary Flames fans or people trolling, there is a legitimate reason to be concerned about this outcome. The 1995–96 New Jersey Devils, the 2006–07 Carolina Hurricanes, and the 2014–15 Los Angeles Kings are all recent teams who actually won the Stanley Cup then missed the playoffs the next season. The immense pressure, injuries, and individual shortcomings could all contribute to a failure to make the playoffs.
Voters of this option may also have been statisticians, as the 35 to 40 win range was the densest by far in the NHL last year, housing 10 teams, as compared to around five in the other sections. Stats aside though, from what we all witnessed of Connor McDavid in the new Amazon show “Faceoff: Inside the NHL,” he will put up 300 points if he needs to in order to drag the team into the playoffs.
Nail biting territory
Is there is a correlation between rising Edmonton manicure appointments and playoff races?
The least popular option was the 41 to 45 win range, with 9.7% of the vote. Teams in this range are on the very edge of making the playoffs. Similar to the scenario wherein the Oilers miss the playoffs, this is not likely unless the Oilers see significant injuries. Though there are times, like the start of last year, where a team, seemingly without any reason at all, can’t put it together, this is generally a short lived problem, and not likely to last for the entire season.
Though it would be a disaster if the Oilers missed the playoffs, if they finished this season in the 41 to 45 win range but still made the playoffs, they have shown themselves capable of beating almost any team and could still survive the tough first-round matchup that comes from a middling regular season.
Where do you think the Oilers will finish and why? Tell us in the comments below!
Photo by Ric Tapia/Icon Sportswire
