At our last Oil Check, alarm bells were ringing in Edmonton, as the team went from looking like they were getting into form one night to playing like a lottery team the next. The possibility of missing the playoffs was a legitimate concern.
The Edmonton Oilers have since won five of their last seven games, including critical divisional wins against the Vegas Golden Knights and the Anaheim Ducks. This gave the Oilers some breathing room in getting home-ice advantage in the first round, and even an outside chance of winning the division for the first time since 1987.
The Oilers have shown their ability to turn their game around in March and April almost every year when the playoffs are coming around, and Oilers fans are hoping that is the case this season as well.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons for the improved play of the team.
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Welcome to the Matt Savoie show
When Leon Draisaitl suffered an injury against Nashville that ruled him out for the rest of the regular season, there were obvious concerns about how the team would be able to overcome that loss. After all, Draisaitl is still fifth in league scoring despite having missed the last six games.
Oilers fans have been bullish on Matthew Savoie all season. He may be small, but he is feisty, skilled and very defensively responsible. The scoring just didn’t seem to be there, but that wasn’t too surprising given he was not getting much ice time.
With Draisaitl out, that has given an opportunity for Savoie to have a full-time position not just in the top six, but on Connor McDavid’s wing. Savoie has taken that opportunity and ran with it. He has five points in the last seven games and played a season high 22:29 on Saturday against Anaheim, showing that he certainly has the coaching staff’s trust now.
His play has allowed the Oilers to move Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to centre the second line and, therefore, keep recently acquired Jason Dickinson in the third line role, rather than the second line where he initially was slotted into after Draisaitl’s injury.
Finding someone who can slot in with McDavid is not an easy thing, so having Savoie as an option allows the team to keep Draisaitl on his own line when he returns from injury. Edmonton could potentially look at having all three of McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nuge down the middle, which with Dickinson in the mix would be arguably the best centre depth in the league.
It has also opened up a discussion on whether the Oilers should be looking to sign Savoie to a long-term extension this summer. It certainly looks like that would be the smart play for the team right now, and one has to think it has been bumped up the to-do list for the offseason now.
Evan Bouchard, Norris Trophy winner?
It seems that when it comes to Evan Bouchard, there are two groups of people: those who think he is atrocious defensively and is a McDavid/Draisaitl/power play merchant, and those who know he is no worse than the second-best defenceman in the league this year.
His 86 points in 74 games are nine more than second-place Zach Werenski (although Werenski has only played 66 games and so actually does have a higher points-per-game with 1.17 to Bouch’s 1.16), and has him 11th in scoring among all players.
Bouchard has been a beast in the new year, as his 49 points in 33 games since January 1 are the third highest in the league behind only McDavid (at 54 points) and Nikita Kucherov (a whopping 70 points).
In the last seven games, Bouch has 10 points, second behind McDavid, and has averaged 25:29 of ice time per game, over four minutes more than the next highest defenceman (Darnell Nurse at 21:18).
There is certainly an argument to be made that Bouchard, not McDavid, is the team’s MVP this year, and even the most jilted Oilers fans will begrudgingly admit that Bouchard has been that good this season. People outside of Edmonton who don’t watch him still won’t, but these are also the same people who said Draisaitl wasn’t anything without McDavid, too, so eventually they will all come around.
The defence Is getting settled
In addition to Bouchard, the rest of the defence corps has been playing well over this stretch. Connor Murphy seems to have found a groove with Darnell Nurse as a shutdown pair, which is a huge development for the team. It has also allowed Jake Walman and Ty Emberson to play on the third pairing, and that also looks like it is a good tandem.
Having three solid lines going into the playoffs is good news, especially since all season the team looked to be trying any and every variant for the bottom two pairings with little success.
Add in Spencer Stastney as your seventh defenceman. He can easily slide into the lineup without being a liability, and you have a strong back end that will be necessary to be able to go on another long playoff run.
The final stretch of the season
The Oilers have eight games left this season. They have three more games on this homestand, playing Seattle, Chicago and Vegas, then a three-game road trip against Utah, San Jose, and L.A. before coming back home to finish the season with games against Colorado and Vancouver.
Right now, the minimum amount of points needed to clinch a playoff spot in the West is 95 points (whether that be as the second wild card or third place in the Pacific). Therefore, the Oilers would need to win six of their remaining eight games to guarantee their ticket.
But if the Oilers beat Seattle and L.A., they would likely clinch third in the Pacific for the team. Edmonton would have a 13 and 12-point lead over both teams, respectively, which is a pretty high mountain to overcome in just eight or nine games.
Similarly, another win over Vegas would probably be enough to claim home ice in the first round, as the Oilers would have a five-point lead.
Can the Oilers win the Pacific? While the win over Anaheim kept the dream alive, the Oilers are still three points behind despite having played one more game. It’s not impossible, but the Oilers would have to get on a heater, and the Ducks would have to have a pretty bad stretch for it to happen. Granted, with how wacky the “pillow fight” Pacific division has been this year, maybe it’s not that far-fetched.
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