Going into the regular season, the expectation for this Edmonton Oilers’ group were high. Jeff Jackson, and later Stan Bowman, were tasked with retooling the roster in an attempt to make another run deep into June. When the smoke settled on the offseason transactions, two things were clear.
First, the Oilers forward group had a clear projected outlook: pure firepower. The team may have lost some of its’ youth and foot speed with departures of Dylan Holloway, Ryan McLeod, and Warren Foegele. However, none of these guys have the shot pedigree or offensive production quite like Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson. Combined with the potential of former top-10 draft pick Vasily Podkolzin, the emphasis is to make one of last season’s most potent offenses even more dangerous.
Second thing is the question mark around the Oilers defensive group. The blue line lost size (Vincent Desharnais), potential (Philip Broberg), and experience (Codi Ceci) during the off-season. Oilers brought in Ty Emberson, who has played in 33 NHL games to date, as well as Josh Brown who may have the size but does not the same skill or the potential that the Oilers gave up in the summer.
The first five games have now come and went, giving us lots to talk about. So how did the Oilers defence fare in all this? Let’s take a look below.
Speed and positioning is lacking
If there’s one thing that the opponents have been able to use against the Oilers, it is the advantage of their speed against slow and poorly positioned defenders. In Saturday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks, Connor Bedard and Co. were on a three-on-two break out, when Brett Kulak and Emberson appeared conflicted on how best to position themselves. Bedard used his speed, then slowed down while his linemates, Teuvo Teravainen and Nick Foligno, continued skating forward. This allowed Bedard to create enough separation from Edmonton’s defence in order to score on an absolutely lethal wrist shot release as Blackhawks would go on to route Edmonton 5–2.
Their other games were largely no different. Countless breakaways and odd-man rushes have showed that the position and speed of the Oilers’ defense needs a lot of work to keep up with NHL talent. Whether it was Mark Scheifele’s early breakaway on Bouchard’s puck handling error, or the countless open looks and chances that both the Blackhawks and the Calgary Flames had, this defence looks vulnerable to say the least.
Edmonton is also missing physicality
Another component that Edmonton’s defence has been missing early into the season is physicality. Edmonton’s defenders have put up the following numbers when it comes to hits this season:
| Player | Hits |
| Darnell Nurse | 6 |
| Ty Emberson | 5 |
| Travis Dermott | 3 |
| Evan Bouchard | 3 |
| Troy Stecher | 2 |
| Brett Kulak | 1 |
| Mattias Ekholm | 1 |
For comparison, Vasily Podkolzin, Jeff Skinner, Connor McDavid have 15, six, and five hits, respectively. Of course, as a defender, your role is to maintain spatial awareness of the action around you in order to break up a pass or make a block.
However, when observing the Oilers’ defensive play against the Flames, it became seemingly easier for Calgary to impose their physicality and will as they piled on one dangerous chance after another on Stuart Skinner. Even something like this would work to make an opponent think twice before making a play:
Luckily for the Oilers, Troy Stecher decided to rise up on Tuesday. He fought Sean Couturier in a tilt that featured significant size mismatch. This, combined with the Corey Perry-Joel Farabee fight right after, gave the Oilers the much needed spark as part of their come-from-behind 4–3 overtime win against the Philadelphia Flyers.
These fights could not have come at a better time for a lifeless team. While the Oilers physical play was still abysmal against the Predators (Oilers were outhit 30–8), we can only hope that these displays of physicality inspire this defensive core, especially guys like Nurse and Ekholm, to rise up and provide momentum-changing hits that we have come to expect.
Currently the league’s worst penalty kill
Across their first four games, the Oilers had the league worst penalty kill to start the season at 56.3%. This includes giving up three goals to the Blackhawks on Saturday and two goals to the Flyers on Tuesday—a far-cry from four goals given up in total across 25 contests in the 2024 postseason (94.3% for NHL playoff leading penalty kill).
Teams seem to be able to enter the Edmonton zone largely unopposed and establish their power play with relative ease. This is a complete change from last June, when the Oilers’ opponents would struggle to set-up shop, get a pass across, let alone have a high quality chance.
Both Ceci and Desharnais were regulars on the Oilers’ penalty kill last season and their presence is clearly missed at this time. Neither were a league leader in defensive play. However, their combined 228 blocked shots and 226 hits from last season are being reminisced about right now.
As Coach Kris Knoblauch continues to juggle the lines, we will hopefully start to see more consistent defensive duos across the penalty kill units, giving chance for these units to develop their chemistry.
In their defence
Full pun intended. Knoblauch has been changing the line combinations and trialing a number of different defensive pairings. While somewhat understandable, this blender of desperation has also introduce some negative consequences such as taking away the time needed for the new pairs to form chemistry between themselves. Give the linemates time to do so, and we may be looking at a better defensive performance overall.
Interestingly from an analytics point of view, @JFreshHockey pointed out that the Oilers expected goals against per 60 is actually in the top 10 of all teams this season. While I am certainly not using analytics to make any excuses for the lifeless performance seen on the ice, the team’s PDO of 0.920 in the first four games (as per Natural Stat Trick) does suggest that they have been on the receiving end of some bad puck luck.
Are we right to scrutinize the team’s performance so early into the season? Maybe. To the naked eye, the team’s performance has looked lackluster. But in their defence, this Oilers team have also been on the wrong side of luck after having multiple goals disallowed this season so far, including at least one in the three of their contests.
What to do moving forward
So what should the Oilers defense do right now? The answers may be simple but there is a reason why coaches preach for the teams to go back to the basics.
First, the Oilers need to increase their physical presence. Make the opponents afraid to play you and think twice before making any kind of move.
Second, use the practice time to continue working on defensive positioning during fast breaks and odd man rushes. Practice the special team play, especially the penalty kill formations.
Most importantly and this is something that I believe will help with the aforementioned fundamentals: be patient and give this defence time to develop their chemistry.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
