Welcome to the 47th annual “Are the Edmonton Oilers better than they were last year” debate: trade deadline edition. I’ll be your host, moderator, and judge as well as arguing both the for and against positions which is really the kind of objectivity and diversity that every debate strives for.
Let’s take a look at the post trade deadline roster from last year and the current roster to remind ourselves of where we are.
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Comparing this year and last year’s roster
| Player | Goals | Assists | Points | Points Pace | 24-25 Player | 24-25 Goals | 24-25 Assists | 24-25 Points |
| Connor McDavid | 36 | 74 | 110 | 139 | Leon Draisaitl | 52 | 54 | 106 |
| Leon Draisaitl | 34 | 60 | 94 | 120 | Connor McDavid | 26 | 74 | 100 |
| Evan Bouchard | 18 | 57 | 75 | 95 | Evan Bouchard | 14 | 53 | 67 |
| Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 17 | 33 | 50 | 65 | Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 20 | 29 | 49 |
| Zach Hyman | 27 | 17 | 44 | 60 | Zach Hyman | 27 | 17 | 44 |
| Mattias Ekholm | 6 | 28 | 34 | 43 | Jake Walman | 7 | 33 | 40 |
| Vasily Podkolzin | 15 | 14 | 29 | 37 | Mattias Ekholm | 9 | 24 | 33 |
| Jack Roslovic | 17 | 10 | 27 | 36 | Darnell Nurse | 5 | 28 | 33 |
| Matthew Savoie | 10 | 15 | 25 | 32 | Corey Perry | 19 | 11 | 30 |
| Darnell Nurse | 7 | 14 | 21 | 27 | Connor Brown | 13 | 17 | 30 |
| Jake Walman | 8 | 10 | 18 | 27 | Jeff Skinner | 16 | 13 | 29 |
| Jason Dickinson | 6 | 7 | 13 | 17 | Viktor Arvidsson | 15 | 12 | 27 |
| Connor Murphy | 4 | 9 | 13 | 17 | Adam Henrique | 12 | 15 | 27 |
| Kasperi Kapanen | 6 | 7 | 13 | 22 | Brett Kulak | 7 | 18 | 25 |
| Ty Emberson | 2 | 10 | 12 | 15 | Vasily Podkolzin | 8 | 16 | 24 |
| Colton Dach | 3 | 7 | 10 | 13 | Mattias Janmark | 2 | 16 | 18 |
| Spencer Stastney | 2 | 8 | 10 | 13 | Trent Frederic | 8 | 7 | 15 |
| Mattias Janmark | 1 | 7 | 8 | 11 | Kasperi Kapanen | 5 | 8 | 13 |
| Trent Frederic | 4 | 1 | 5 | 6 | Ty Emberson | 2 | 11 | 13 |
| Curtis Lazar | 3 | 2 | 5 | 7 | Troy Stetcher | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| Josh Samanski | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | Derek Ryan | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| John Klingberg | 1 | 3 | 4 | |||||
| Noah Philp | 2 | 1 | 3 | |||||
| Max Jones | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
| Josh Brown | 0 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Cam Dineen | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| Quinn Hutson | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| Connor Ingram | .892 Sv% | 2.79 GAA | Stuart Skinner | .896 Sv% | 2.81 GAA | |||
| Tristan Jarry | .864 Sv% | 3.93 GAA | Calvin Pickard | .900 Sv% | 2.71 GAA |
Please note that the players listed from last year’s team are only those who played in games after the trade deadline on March 7.
It’s crazy how fast you forget who was on the team last year. All in all, John Klingberg didn’t play that much last year but I completely forgot he was on the team at all.
One of the first things I noticed when filling in this lengthy, tedious chart, was that the Oilers seem to be scoring more points this year than they did last. Lo and behold, this year they are on pace for 791 points, as in, the sum of all their projected points is 791. Whereas last year the total at the end of the year was 746. This certainly makes sense since the Oilers currently score 3.55 goals per game and last year that number was at only 3.16.
However, the other thing you notice when looking at the chart is that, even though the top nine scorers are out performing either themselves from last year or the person at the same rank as them, the team was much deeper. As a matter of fact, after those top nine scorers, every player this year is scoring the same or less than either themselves or the person at the same rank as them.
Is there a difference in defence or goaltending?
One interesting note is that the Oilers are getting more points from the defence this year than they did last. the total from defencemen last year was 223 and this year it is trending for 237. Though that isn’t a huge difference and the majority of the difference is coming from Evan Bouchard’s superb year. This is another case of the team not being as deep as Edmonton got more points from Jake Walman, Darnell Nurse, and Brett Kulak last year.
The last thing you notice from this chart is that, while Connor Ingram is putting up very similar numbers to Stuart Skinner from last year. Tristan Jarry is not keeping up with Calvin Pickard. That is one of the biggest reasons why I would say that the 2025–26 post-trade deadline edition of the Oilers is not as good as this year’s. Things have been somewhat stable in net in the very recent past, but it still feels like the team is flying by the seat of their pants, relying very heavily on their prize winning offence.
In the end, the Oilers already had their backup in the system and probably didn’t need to trade away Skinner at all. Or, at least, maybe not in that trade.
Are the Oilers better this year?
Personally I just don’t see it for the Oilers this year. I don’t believe they are as good as they were last year. There are currently rumours of internal strife with the team and the coaching, the goaltending is a question mark, though it may be a question mark because the defending is an exclamation mark question mark (in chess, ?! means, that move was a confusing and costly blunder), and they can’t string together more than two or three wins to save their lives.
The win against Colorado was a huge one, especially since they had to fight for it. As well they will have to fight to make sure they don’t slip out of a playoff spot. So maybe that battle brings them closer as a team and acclimatizes them to the physical and mental pressure of the playoffs. Don’t forget that they have two of the best players in the world on their team. Anything standing in between Connor McDavid and the Stanley Cup is likely to develop a McDavid shaped hole in it, or, knowing McDavid, is likely to get burnt wide and embarrassed on the highlight reel for the next 10 years.
One doesn’t go far betting against McDavid and Leon Draisaitl but I believe the Oilers are in a worse place now than they were last year at this time.
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They shouldn’t have screwed Calvin Pickard.