At our last Oil Check, the Edmonton Oilers had one of their best starts to a season in a long time, going 5–1–1 even in light of a large amount of injuries.
The teams has kept their hot play alive, going 6–1–1 in their last eight games. The two losses were a bit concerning, one being a 7–2 shellacking at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the other a sloppy 4–3 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings. However, the team bounced back with a three game winning streak, their fourth streak that long this season.
The Oilers now lead the Pacific Division with a healthy five point lead over the Vegas Golden Knights, are first in the Western Conference, and second in the entire league.
The team is humming along right now, so let’s take a look at a few reasons why.
Adopting a new playstyle
The Oilers of the past few years have been a team that liked to hold onto the puck and gain the offensive zone with possession. It certainly fit the team’s playstyle, but it also led to many a high turnover.
Under the new coaching staff, the Oilers have now started to favour the dump and chase strategy, to the point that the team has gone from the bottom of the league in dump rates to the top, as well as puck battle win percentage. The team also has allowed the least amount of rush chances against, compared to last year when they let the third most of any team in the league.
On the other side, the team’s rush chances for have dropped drastically, which would be expected with this new strategy. But given the team’s performance this year, it is safe to say that that isn’t really much of an issue.
The big boys keep rolling
The top three scorers in the NHL right now are Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard, and that is obviously a huge reason why the Oilers are where they are right now.
Connor McDavid is having one of the best seasons in NHL history, as he currently has the longest season-opening assist streak with 30 over 15 games. That’s also the fastest any player has hit 30 assists to start a season. The craziest part is that if McDavid didn’t score a single goal this year, he would still be the league’s top point scorer. That is legitimately Gretzky-like.
Evan Bouchard, meanwhile, has 26 points in 15 games, and leads the league in plus-minus with a +22. He also became the first defenceman since Al MacInnis in 1990 to score 25+ points in his first 15 games of the season.
Leon Draisaitl may not be setting records like his two teammates, but still has 12 goals and 28 points in 15 games, which is pretty good still.
There was lots of talk about how playing McDavid and Draisaitl together at even strength might not be the best idea depth wise, but the way they are playing it’s hard to even think about splitting them up with the way they are playing right now.
The depth scoring is coming too
Speaking of the depth, there was some worry at our last Oil Check that there wasn’t enough support coming from the bottom three lines, meaning that without McDavid and Draisaitl going supernova, the Oilers could not actually win.
In the last eight games, the Oilers have had three non-McDavid and Draisaitl players score three goals a piece (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Colton Dach, and Mathieu Joseph), and six such players to score over a half a point per game pace.
The last three games has seen the bulk of that depth scoring, with 10 of the team’s 12 goals coming from someone not named McDavid, Draisaitl or Bouchard.
McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard are still over a point-per-game each in these three games, mind you, but the fact that the rest of the team is able to pot some goals is exactly what the team needs in order to be able to continue to win games at a sustainable rate.
Tristan Jarry revenge tour
When Devon Levi got injured against the Carolina Hurricanes, the panic button was being pressed by fans in Oil Country. While his 0.887 save percentage didn’t scream starting goalie level play, he had won six of the seven games he played, and had posted at least 0.900 in four of those games.
With both Levi and Frederik Andersen being injured, it meant the team was going to have to rely solely on Tristan Jarry, who lost his starting gig to Connor Ingram last year, and then to Levi this year.
Jarry has risen to the challenge, however, going 3–1–1 in his last five games with a 0.922 save percentage, including two straight shutouts against the Calgary Flames and then the New York Islanders.
The Oilers turned to Matt Tomkins against the New York Rangers, given it was a back-to-back and Jarry had then played four straight games and five out of the last seven. Tomkins played quite well in the team’s 4–1 victory, his first NHL start since April 17, 2024, but realistically you have to think the team is still going to lean heavily on Jarry until Levi comes back.
If Jarry can keep this play up, when Levi comes the Oilers could have a pretty good 1A/1B tandem, which will become even more interesting whenever Andersen is healthy too. It’s a welcome problem to have in Edmonton though.
What’s next for the Oilers?
The next seven games see the Oilers close out their New York metro area road trip on Tuesday against the New Jersey Devils, and then come back home for four games against the Anaheim Ducks, Vancouver Canucks, New York Rangers, and Philadelphia Flyers. They then head back on the road for another Saturday night (but not Hockey Night in Canada anymore, sadly) match against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and then face the Flyers once more.
We will see if the team can keep up with their recent hot play, especially the depth and goaltending, but it is safe to say that the team is looking much, much better than it did at this time last year.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
