Wilting Oilers now wallowing among NHL’s bottom feeders
There’s no other way to ST. LOUIS slice or dice this.
The Edmonton Oilers are a bad hockey team right now with four regulation wins in their 20 games, not in the same league as the Oiler “juggernots”’ in that decade-long run out of the playoffs, but eminently beatable most nights. They haven’t won two straight games over 60 minutes all year.
It’s close to the same lineup from a year ago when they over-achieved, obviously, and had 103 points. Only one injury that can be used as a quasi alibi, the knee surgery to defenceman Andrej Sekera.
So no woulda, shoulda, coulda for a team that’s 28th in the NHL, one quarter of the way through the season, which is certainly a fair barometer of how this team is.
Some observations:
Connor McDavid has one more ■ point (25) than last year after 20 games, sixth in league scoring now and carries an immense load. But he is trying to do too much lately to try to lead them out of their quagmire.
Good on him because he’s part of the solution, not the problem, at all, but he’s forcing plays and giving it away too often or missing his man as he did with Jamie Benn on Dallas’s fifth goal Saturday.
This is a gentle tickle folks in Oiler Nation. Every now and then we criticized Wayne Gretzky for his defence, too. McDavid is the engine that drives this team, but he’s having his troubles too.
Goalie Cam Talbot, after a herculean ■ last season of 73 games, can’t string enough consistent games together to bail them out. His save percentage of .903 is 21st among goalies who’ve played at least a dozen games. His even-strength save percentage is much better at .916, but 18 goalies have better numbers five-on-five.
Their No. 1 defenceman, Oscar ■
Klefbom, is minus-9 and while his partner Matt Benning really struggled in Dallas, which hurt Klefbom by association. He’s had trouble outscoring his mistakes with four ES points.
Their heart-and-soul, most ■ portable forward Mark Letestu is minus-11, baffling as that seems.
Zack Kassian, so good last year ■ and in the playoffs, has no goals in 20 games.
They only have two five-on-five ■ goals from a bottom-six forward, Ryan Strome and Jujhar Khaira.
The pluses:
Adam Larsson’s game is coming ■ around. He was outstanding in Dallas, playing 28 minutes.
Darnell Nurse looks like a toppairing ■ D.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been ■ the Oilers’ second-best player, not just forward.
Milan Lucic has been very snarly ■ of late and 10 of his 12 points have been five-on-five.
In the middle:
Leon Draisaitl has 14 points in 16 ■ games but hasn’t been the offensive beast in regulation time (in OT, yes) as he was last year.
Strome has eight points, but only ■ one goal five-on-five in 20 games.
Thirteen teams are two games over or two games under .500, but, alas, the Oilers are not one of them. They are only five points out of a wild-card spot, but they have to leapfrog five teams to get there. There is no game-in, game-out firmness to their game, the same forcefulness Larsson, say, brings to the table pretty much every night. They are a bottom-feeder. They are closer to the lottery than the Stanley Cup, and that is staggeringly tough to say after last year’s 103 points.