The first eight games of the Edmonton Oilers’ season were a bit of a bumpy ride, as we looked at in the first Oil Check of the year, coming out just above 0.500 and getting ready for a fairly tough eight-game stretch.
The Oilers took a step back over these last four weeks, going 2–3–3 and falling to sixth place in the wild card race (albeit just two points out from both the last wild card spot and third place in the Pacific Division).
Only winning two of eight games is bad enough, but the Oilers ended it on the complete opposite of a high note, dropping a 9–1 decision to the Colorado Avalanche on Hockey Night in Canada. What do the Oilers have to do differently? Is there anything they are even doing right?
Jack Attack
We will put aside the many negatives for now, and look at possibly the only good storyline this year, being the impact of early season free agent signing Jack Roslovic. Roslovic is fifth in team scoring with eight points in 14 games, seven of those points coming in the last seven games. He is also only one of five Oilers who have a positive plus minus (albeit just +1).
Roslovic seems to have found a good rhythm alongside Leon Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin, including making a beautiful one-handed pass to Podkolzin against Dallas.
With Zach Hyman out, the Oilers were in need of a player to step up in the top-six to replace his production and so far Roslovic seems to be doing just that.
Will something finally give in terms of goaltending?
Goaltending is a mainstay topic in these Oil Checks, although in a 9–1 loss it is hard to place blame solely on the netminders. But the goaltending has still been an issue, as Stuart Skinner has sported just a 0.873 over his past six games, while Calvin Pickard rocked a 0.829, fourth worst in the league.
When asked about if the team was losing faith in the goaltending, coach Kris Knoblauch took a looooooooong pause before saying he doesn’t believe so, which kind of makes one think that he does in fact believe they are.
Connor Ingram hasn’t been ripping it up in the AHL, however, and so it doesn’t seem like he would be the solution at this time. That means any shakeup will have to come from outside the organization. The question is, is there any such goalie available? Oilers fans (and maybe even the Oilers players) are sure hoping so.
Juggling act of lineup
If there is one constant in the Oilers’ lineup this season, it is that there is no consistency. It seems like every game has a new set of lines, and regardless of how the game starts, the lines are all different by the end.
It seems like all this line juggling would not be conducive to trying to build a winning team, as having constantly different linemates makes it hard to really gel and get a feel for each other. It seems to be an obvious issue when watching the team look so discombobulated at times, and nothing like a potential Stanley Cup Contender. The team also looks frankly boring at times, which seems like an almost impossible feat when you have two of the best and most dynamic players in the league, but alas, the Oilers have found a way.
The line with the most icetime together is the Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Connor McDavid, and Andrew Mangiapane one with 80.4 minutes, followed by the Roslovic-Draisaitl-Podkolzin line with 76.6 minutes. Overall, there have been 22 different forward line combinations with over 10 minutes played, the most in the league (one more than the Toronto Maple Leafs).
Sure, part of that is having some decent depth who have to switch in and out every few games, but it still seems like, at almost a quarter through the season, the Oilers should have their lines mostly sorted out.
With Mattias Janmark and Zach Hyman coming back from injury soon, it will just make the blender go into overdrive, trying to fit them in. Granted, it isn’t like there is much chemistry here for them to ruin, so that’s something!
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What’s next for the Oilers?
The Oilers will now play eight games in the span of 13 days, including seven straight on the road after playing at home tonight against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
While a long road trip may not seem like a great thing, perhaps that is exactly what a struggling team might need to get itself more focused and out of this funk. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that they are only facing three playoff teams in this stretch in the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Carolina Hurricanes. The remaining games are against the bottom-four teams in the Eastern Conference. Mind you, that includes the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers and last year’s Eastern Conference winning Washington Capitals, so maybe not quite your usual bottom feeders that you could look to beat up on.
At this point, it is anyone’s guess on how the Oilers will perform on any given night, but lately, it seems to be more than likely to be bad. Will the Oilers be able to get it back together? Is this this season’s McDrai sad photo that spurs the turnaround? Or will the Oilers continue to stumble and require some drastic changes to salvage the season? These next eight games are certainly going to be a pivotal stretch for this year.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
