EDMONTON — It’s becoming clear these Edmonton Oilers just aren’t the team we thought they’d be.
Getting schooled 5-3 at home by the Minnesota Wild on Thursday — a score that flattered them — was just the latest example of this group not being up to snuff.
“We’re a quarter of the way through the season and we continue to have this,” winger Corey Perry said. “That wasn’t good enough.”
No, it certainly wasn’t.
Sure, they’re missing three important regulars in Zach Hyman, Darnell Nurse and Viktor Arvidsson because of injuries. Bump that number to four if you include top-nine winger and power forward Evander Kane, who hasn’t played a minute this season and won’t for quite a while longer.
But these Oilers, the Stanley Cup finalists and consensus front-runners entering this campaign, should be strong enough and deep enough to withstand a few departures from the lineup. They’re not. Not even close.
This team can’t score. It doesn’t defend. It isn’t getting enough saves — especially ones at key times.
Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success, does it? The Oilers have looked championship calibre so infrequently it’s startling.
“I wish we had answers,” Perry said. “I have no idea.”
“If you want to be a good team, you’ve got to be consistently good,” defenceman Evan Bouchard said.
It’s left them with a pedestrian 10-9-2 record. They’re fortunate to have that mark even if advanced stats like possession metrics and expected goals indicate the Oilers have been among the unluckiest teams in the league.
“I believe in this team,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We should be better than our record says. But it’s a hard game. You need good players, but you need good players working hard. Collectively, we can do more.”
That was so apparent Thursday. It started in the offensive zone, which surprisingly has arguably been the Oilers’ biggest weakness.
The first two goals they got against the Wild were the flukiest of flukes.
Leon Draisaitl got credit for his 15th of the season on the first shift of the game when his attempted pass from the Edmonton blue line ricocheted off a skate and bounced past a bewildered Marc-Andre Fleury. Draisaitl might not score again in that manner if he tried a million more times.
Perry then banked a wraparound attempt off Jared Spurgeon’s skate in the second period.
Even their last goal, scored six-on-five by Jeff Skinner with 24.6 seconds remaining, his first tally in nine games, went in off Jake Middleton.
Skinner’s 4th of the season 🚨 #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/Z8m51FB13O
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) November 22, 2024
The Oilers generated next to nothing.
“We’re trying to be too cute and playing the perimeter game,” Perry said. “That just doesn’t work.”
The Oilers had little hope of scoring unless Draisaitl or linemate Connor McDavid were on the ice. That’s been standard fare for this group.
They’ve scored 58 goals, and 24 belong to Nos. 29 and 97. That’s 41 percent. The two superstars have more than half of the 45 goals netted by forwards.
“We have to find a way to score goals,” Knoblauch said. “You need skill to do that, but you also need some grit, simplifying your game and going hard to the net.”
At the other end of the ice, every Wild goal happened because of an Oilers miscue ranging from sloppy to downright inexcusable.
Draisaitl was careless with a bouncing puck along the boards in the Edmonton zone, and early Hart Trophy candidate Kirill Kaprizov found Matt Boldy in the high slot for an easy goal.
Bouchard continued his run of defensive errors when he checked for danger in front of the net, but then drifted away and allowed Marcus Foligno to grab the loose puck and his lunch money en route to a tap-in.
Troy Stecher and Josh Brown each couldn’t clear the puck, allowing Marcus Johansson to score. Brown was playing his third straight game for the Oilers. He was on his way back to AHL Bakersfield in the morning when he was summoned from the Edmonton airport after Travis Dermott fell ill.
Adam Henrique was sidestepped at centre by Ryan Hartman and then couldn’t catch Frederick Gaudreau to the net.
Instead of making a push down two goals in the third period, the Oilers let the Wild to take it to them. Gaudreau scored his second of the game on a two-on-one to quash any hope of a comeback.
“All the goals (except the first one) are 5-10 feet away from the blue paint,” Knoblauch said. “We didn’t do a good enough job boxing out.
“We’ve got to be better around there.”
That made it five goals against on goaltender Stuart Skinner.
It could have been more if the Wild didn’t have a goal overturned for offside thanks to a successful coach’s challenge by the Oilers, plus another called back for pushing Skinner into the net. He stopped 21 shots, but the Oilers could have used another one or two even if he wasn’t to blame for any of the pucks that got past him.
Skinner is now sporting an .876 save percentage and has allowed 9.4 more goals than expected at all strengths, per Natural Stat Trick.
“He’s not playing at the level he was last year,” Knoblauch said. “Last year, since I got here, I thought he was one of the top goaltenders (in the league). If he had a bad game, it was turned around the next night.
“For a goalie to play well, it’s got to be predictable. We’ve got to be more predictable (defensively) for him. … That was not a predictable game for a goaltender to turn his game around.”
Both parts of that quote are fair comment. And that’s the rub. The goalie hasn’t brought it enough, and neither has his teammates in front of him.
It’s no wonder the Oilers have a minus-9 goal differential.
“I don’t think we’ve played close to our potential in many nights,” defenceman Mattias Ekholm said. “Obviously, we have a ways to go.
“We know that as a group, and we know we played a lot better hockey in stretches last year. In order to get back there, it starts with the work. It starts with the defensive side of the game.”
The Oilers not being close Thursday is a microcosm for their season.
After all, maybe a loss to an excellent team like the Wild (13-3-3) should have been expected. The Oilers are 1-6-2 against opponents who were holding down playoff spots Thursday, their only victory coming against the Vancouver Canucks on Nov. 9. They’ve racked up points against the league’s weaklings to the tune of a 9-3 mark.
“Good teams show up night after night,” Bouchard said. “We know what kind of team we have. We know we’re a good team. It’s just about putting it together every night.”
Something must change with this team — and quickly.
This roster needs to be augmented by general manager Stan Bowman and hockey operations CEO Jeff Jackson. The dilemma is the longer they wait, the more cap space they’ll likely have — which helps facilitate a bigger swing. However, this organization is bereft of prospects and even spent a conditional 2025 first-round pick to take Sam O’Reilly 32nd in June.
Barring a trade, the onus is on the people in the dressing room to fix what ails them.
“I don’t think we’re far off,” Perry said. “It’s the compete level. It’s just a matter of competing night in and night out. We look great when we do it — and when we don’t, it’s ugly.”
It was sure ugly Thursday. The great performances haven’t come often, either.
It’s why the Oilers are in the state that they’re in — average, maybe good, but far from the great team they’re supposed to be.
“We’ve got to keep pushing,” Perry said. “We’ve got to find that game and relish it.”
(Photo of Declan Chisholm and Jeff Skinner: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)
