If you are an Edmonton Oilers fan, you should most likely get your blood pressure checked. As the 2025–26 season nears its end and we inch ever closer to the playoffs, the Oilers have exhibited several varying patterns in their play. Some bringing you to your feet to cheer, while other stretches of play have you burying your face in your hands to avoid watching the trainwreck that seemed almost rehearsed. If you’ve followed this team for any amount of time, you’ve been hurt far worse.
We aren’t going to focus on the negatives for too long, as the Oilers have some new pieces, a refreshing defensive structure (the previous game against the Vegas Golden Knights notwithstanding), and a third and fourth line that seem to have finally locked in.
A “pillow fight” Pacific Division
The Oilers’ inconsistency has yet to stop them from being a good, or almost an incredible, team at times, but the moments the cracks show, a full on-ice breakdown tends to follow. Thankfully, the Oilers are in a division that has given the team leeway for mistakes and inconsistency.
The Pacific has been called a “pillow fight” by the Oilers Captain Connor McDavid. When the Oilers fall apart on the ice, we have seen constant defensive mistakes that have cost many games this season that the team had no reason to lose.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have seen Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl champion the Oilers to a victory that could be replayed on top 25 highlights for the next ten years. What has caused the Oilers to be such a wild card (not a playoff wild card, thankfully) this season?
The Oilers patterns of play have kept them from being the stand-alone leader of their division, and while the beginning of April has seen them break through and create greater opportunities, at no better a time, we’re going to take a look at what has held them back.
Struggles against the top six in the league
One of the most worrisome patterns the Oilers have fallen into this season is their uncanny ability to lose to a team that is a viable contender for the Stanley Cup. If we look at the top six teams in the NHL—the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Carolina Hurricanes, Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Minnesota Wild—the Oilers’ overall record against them in the 2025–26 season is 2–9–3.
The Oilers put on a strong showing with their win against the Avalanche. A potential game-turning penalty saw Nathan McKinnon exit the game early with a game misconduct (that was later repealed), but Edmonton still had a strong offensive and defensive showing nonetheless. Against the Hurricanes, the Oilers had a thrilling overtime that saw Leon Draisaitl score the overtime winner, but the good feeling of those particular wins has been difficult to hold onto with how the rest of those games turned out.
Nine of the 14 games the Oilers have played have resulted in losses, with some of them being rather difficult to watch. It’s hard to say what goes on in the locker room or even the players’ minds that translates to how they play on the ice, but there seem to be some mental blocks the Oilers have to overcome as a whole when it comes to playing a team that deserves to make a cup run.
Defensive issues remains a constant
Defence has been an issue this season, to say it neatly. It has been improving, especially with the new additions from the trade deadline, but it’s taken time for the players to fully find and settle into their roles. We have seen many a soft pass sent right into the waiting blade of the opposing team, the defence a few steps behind a skater breaking out, and the Oilers giving up chasing an opposing player.
All too often this season, it has looked like the Oilers have given up, with my two largest culprits being Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard. Their names have been tossed around in far too many negative conversations this season, so we won’t dwell on it too long here. The Oilers need to see 100% effort from everyone when a game is within reach.
Some games do become out of reach. In those situations, the Oilers need to play smart, defensive hockey and get to the buzzer, mainly trying to avoid injuries. The Oilers have some magic on the team, and with how the players can connect, even a three or four-goal deficit doesn’t put the game away.
Regardless, playing the top six teams in the league hasn’t painted a very pretty picture for what the playoffs will look like. But at least if the Oilers make it into the Western Conference Final, the Avalanche, Wild, and Stars will have fought it out already, taking out some of our most dangerous competition.
Creating opportunity at the right time
It’s time to switch gears and focus on the positive. While the Oilers’ five-game winning streak came to a close against the Golden Knights, those five wins all looked like playoff hockey. The Golden Knights played against a tired Oilers team that was missing Draisaitl and Zach Hyman—two key pieces to almost every victory so far this season.
Winning those past five games without Draisaitl and looking as good as they did while on the ice is what is most impressive, with key players like Connor Murphy, Darnell Nurse, and Jason Dickinson limiting most teams to significantly fewer grade A chances against.
Nurse has struggled with a team worst -18 this season, but since being paired with Murphy in late March/early April, he has gone +2 while seeing more ice time, and overall looking far more confident.
In all honesty, if the Oilers had been playing defence like this from the start of the season, there is a strong possibility, and this is conjecture at best, that they would be in a much safer spot playoff-wise. The Oilers may have been closer in points to the other divisions’ playoff contenders.
Juxtaposition between the Oilers special teams
While the power play has been lacklustre since losing Draisaitl, which any Oilers fan should have expected to happen, the penalty kill has completely turned around in the greatest fashion.
Before the last game against the Golden Knights, the Oilers successfully killed off 10 consecutive penalties in three games, dating back to March 24. While the Oilers let a power play goal slip through against Vegas, they are still operating at a 87% penalty kill in the previous 10 games.
The penalty kill was a rough pattern this season that the Oilers have broken through, and the best way to illustrate the change is the 4–3 overtime game against Vegas. Once the Oilers took a penalty in overtime, it was safe to assume most fans/viewers believed the game was over.
However, even with dangerous sustained pressure in the Oilers’ zone, along with a few key saves from Connor Ingram, the Oilers completely shut down the Golden Knights. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nurse, and Murphy all skated for the entire two-minute penalty, and their play directly led to Bouchard’s game-winner.
A much more positive outlook for the team
While the Oilers have struggled to string together wins due to falling back into the same patterns and mentalities, the team looks fresh, driven, and ready to play. The Oilers were bound to lose a game to end their win streak, and it took two missing key pieces for Vegas to take the win.
But the offence is in a shoot-first mentality instead of passing and giving away an opportunity, the defence has dialed in, and the mentality of the team as a whole seems to have shifted, without much time to spare.
The new additions of Murphy and Dickinson have been phenomenal so far, even if it took several games for them to adjust; we will get into why they fit and how their mentality has positively affected the team next time. The patterns of play that have plagued this team since the beginning of the season seem to finally be in the rear-view mirror, and it couldn’t have come at a more crucial time.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
