Oilers Have A Problem On The Powerplay

File that one under headlines I never thought I'd have to write.

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It's no secret the Oilers have had trouble scoring to start the year -- their 12 goals are tied for third-fewest in the league. They've had their five-on-five struggles, to be sure, but the biggest culprit is a surprising one: they've only scored once on the powerplay. Considering this is a unit that had the highest powerplay percentage of all time two years ago and placed fourth in the league last year, a 6.7% powerplay clip through six games just isn't good enough.

Part of it is that the team is only shooting 5.9% on the powerplay to start the year. That's clearly not sustainable for a team blessed with so much offensive talent. But it's not all bad luck.

According to MoneyPuck, the Oilers have generated only 1.98 expected goals with the man advantage. That's the second-worst total in the league, ahead of only Anaheim. It's not just that they're not scoring, they're barely even threatening. Their 17 shots in 15 opportunities rank them in the bottom ten league-wide.

It's not hard to see when you're watching the team, either. Far from the fast and furious passing, the whirling, mesmerizing multi-pronged attack with five legitimate shooting threats that we've come to expect from the Oilers' PP, this year's iteration is flat and lifeless.

A 2024-25 Edmonton Oilers powerplay is becoming a uniquely frustrating experience. The puck, and all five players, are stuck on the perimeter the entire time, with every cross-ice pass batted down by a defender. It's featured a lot of one-on-one play, button hooks, and doubling back because everyone is too far away from each other to make a clean pass.

The end result of most of these sequences is either a cleared puck or a low-percentage shot that takes a full minute to engineer. It's unclear whether this is an Oilers problem -- the key players on their powerplay have been relatively ineffective at even strength as well -- or if opposing penalty kills have simply caught up, but something needs to be done.

One possible fix would be substituting Jeff Skinner for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on the top unit. Skinner has simply outplayed Nugent-Hopkins so far this season, and this unit might just need a shakeup, a kick in the pants. Skinner's no stranger to the powerplay -- this is the first time in his career that he's not a fixture on his team's top powerplay unit.

He's also a stylistic fit, with a similar toolkit to Nugent-Hopkins but a much more shot-forward approach. Even if he's not the one shooting the puck, his presence as a shooting threat could open up more ice for the rest of the team to find Leon Draisaitl or Zach Hyman in their usual spots.

Apart from a personnel change, the man advantage could use a strategic change. As noted by Bruce Curlock in the tweet embedded above, the current powerplay features no player support, constantly forcing the puck carrier into 2-on-1s. For a lasting change to this currently anemic group, a structural change might be needed.

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