Oilers have narrow margin for error after nightmare start

Edmonton's struggles to find reliable goaltending are well documented but the Oilers still have a top-10 power play and will rely on Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to raise their production if the team is to recover and make the NHL playoffs.

Video Transcript

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NICK ASHBOURNE: Welcome to "Shot Volume." I'm Nick Ashbourne with Anthony Petrielli. And today, we have to start in Edmonton. Anthony, on a scale of minor panic to, like, looting in the streets and fires burning all over Edmonton, what do you think is the appropriate level of panic for this Oilers team, which is sitting just above the San Jose Sharks in the standings right now?

And if they lose to the Sharks in their next game, they would literally be-- could be classified as the worst team in the NHL. Obviously, that's, like, a little bit unfair, but that's how dire things are in Edmonton.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: I think there's a couple things. Like, it's not as straightforward a question as always, right? Why would we ask easy questions? I think there should be some legit concern, because, I mean, they're 2-8-1.

Like, that's a terrible start. Like, you'll need to play really good hockey the rest of the way to have a 100-plus point season at this point. So that in and of itself is concerning. Like, they have dug themselves a hole here, and it's a legitimate one. It's not a three game losing streak hole.

Like, it's pretty bad record over 1/8 of a season hole. Like, you can't ignore that. But on the flip side, I mean, one, I don't think that they're this bad of a hockey team. I don't think anyone does. And the second point is I don't think the West is particularly strong.

So that's why I can't panic too much with them yet. Like, I'm almost channeling that Evander Kane after their first few bad games where he said, like-- he kind of mockingly was talking about the sky is falling. And I was like, well, maybe you should be careful what you say.

Like, get things back on track before you talk about it. But I just don't think you can ignore how bad the West is in this conversation. I think if they were in the East, the concern level should be, like, a 7. But because they're in the West, it's maybe like a 6 or borderline 5.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah, and the division they're in, the conference they're in is meaningful. To get to even 95 points, which people tend to think of as kind of the baseline to make the playoffs, that's an 104 point pace for them. Like, they're coming off a season where they were significantly better than that, and you've got basically the same cast of characters.

So it's not crazy to think that making the playoffs isn't too difficult for them. And then having that 100 point season, you push that further, that is a real challenge at this point. But that's probably good enough to get you into that top three slot in the division.

There's sort of two things happening, right? On one hand, the offense isn't there to the same degree. Last year, this was the most dangerous offense in the NHL, scoring close to 4 goals a game. This year, it's 2.64 right now.

And a lot of it is that they haven't gotten it from that top two guys, right? Draisaitl and McDavid have combined for just 7 goals this season. Last year-- and I know that McDavid has been banged up a little bit, this isn't a, like, "bury McDavid" moment by any means. But last year, those guys were giving them, like, 1.5 goals a game on average. And this year, it's closer to half that. So that's a big difference offensively. You have to think--

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: Even on that note, I'd add, too, like McDavid is on pace to have his lowest shot put of his career since his rookie season. And, like, I know he's hurt, but, like, he's, like, actively not hunting his shot the way he was last-- I'm sure the injury plays a role in it. I don't think McDavid became an instantly worse hockey player than last year. But, like, to your point, like, I do think it's a little deeper than just, like, oh-- he's legitimately not shooting the way that he was.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah. He doesn't look as good, frankly. Like, he doesn't look as good-- I mean, that's an incredibly high standard, right, to be like, oh, he doesn't look as good as he did in that historic, incredible 150 point season. Even if you go and look at some of the new tracking data, like, he doesn't have the same amount of speed as he did last year, or he hasn't shown it.

He doesn't have the same amount of just distance covered. Like, it's just a little bit less dynamic across the board with him-- early, early days. Like, again, with the context of the injury, it's important to keep all that in mind. Like, you have to believe that Edmonton's offense is going to come back to being pretty good.

Like, the thing that's a little bit concerning is the power play is already good. There isn't that much room for growth. They need to do better in five on five. So that's tougher than just saying, oh, this power play will click in.

The other side of it, though, that is tougher is the goaltending. Like, it's what people talked about coming into the season. In the season it's been brutal. You know, they just waived Jack Campbell. And that's the part where it's hard to just sort of wave it away and say, oh, this will just get better.

Like, it'll get better in the sense that it's just been so-- it's been, like, below NHL level. So it will get better to an extent. But the degree it gets better is kind of unclear here, because it is very difficult to find goaltending solutions. And right now, the thing that they're doing is kind of counting on Stuart Skinner to be the guy that he was during the regular season last year.

And he's not a guy with a huge track record. I'm not saying that he's not talented. Like, he has decent draft pedigree. He had a good runup to the NHL before he came. Like, it's not like he came out of absolutely nowhere before last year. But he's not a guy that you say, oh, OK, Stuart Skinner is going to figure it out. He's going to give us above average goaltending. I think you just don't really with him. And that has to be concerning for Edmonton.

STUART SKINNER: Yeah, I thought the start, obviously, is something that we wanted to do-- come out hard, come out strong. And we did that. Let in a couple goals pretty quick, and it kind of just killed us a bit, and game moved on, and we ended up losing. It's a tough loss.

Yeah, I think I can do a lot better to help my team out. I'm the goalie. Of my job is to stop the puck. And I let in 6. So that's not a good recipe to win games.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: It's always easy to go back to goaltending, right? Like, end of the day, it's always a lightning rod. And it has been a problem. No one can deny that. Their goaltending has not been up to snuff.

But, like, it should be respectable enough. I think it'll rebound to some degree. To your point, like, Stuart Skinner is good. Like, I know-- I see all the numbers of their team controlling play-- and I think some games the goaltending piece has been a bit overblown.

Against Vancouver the last game, when they're up, like, 19 to 3 in shots and they're losing 3-1-- it wasn't 19-3, I think it was 19 to 7 at that point-- they were up 19 to 3 at one point, and it was 1-1, and you can just feel, like, the deflation in them, right?

Like, they were dominating that first period. They looked awesome. Like, they did everything you would want a team to do. And they came out of it losing.

And it's a fragile team at the moment. It just feels like they need something to go right. Like, they need to just get the ball rolling to some degree. And, like, everyone just needs to-- we talked about Evander Kane saying, like, the sky is not falling.

It's like they do need to calm down, but they need something to-- like, good to happen to cause them to calm down. Like, it can't just be like let's just calm down and play hockey. At this point, it seems like they need a breakthrough.

I think on the power play note, too, like you mentioned, their power play is already good, which, obviously is true. Like, their power play is not going to fall off a cliff. But there's something to be said about they had a historically good power play last year.

And any sort of drop back in that, it hurts them. Like, they're not-- like, the power play is a big deal for that team. And having just, like, a regular top 5 to 10 power play, like, how much is that going to hurt them?

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah, I mean, it might not be enough. Like, it was such a driver of their success last year, and they finished so strong with it. Like, you know, they got Ekholm at the end of last year, and they went on this huge run in the regular season. The playoff run wasn't what they expected to be, right?

But people saw this team and then they thought, you know, here's a power play. The defense has been shored up a little bit. We like what Skinner did during last regular season even if the playoffs wasn't-- like, how many people picked the Oilers to win the Stanley Cup? Like, there was tons and tons--

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: Not me, but a lot.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Not me. Not me. My Rangers looking good. I mean, they're looking fine. Whatever.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: They look like a wagon. I think the Rangers look really good.

NICK ASHBOURNE: They're looking really good defensively. But, like, as always-- and that's neither here nor there. But it is-- they leaned on the power play last year. And again, because the characters involved-- McDavid, Draisaitl-- like, these guys are so good.

That's easy to say, oh, well, of course it's going to be that good again because they have these ingredients. And the guys are incredible. And that gap between where they are this year, I think they're-- yeah, they're a top 10 unit. And that historical unit last year, it is meaningful.

And there's no sure thing that they're going to find that extra 7%, I think because that's the gap they're looking at right now. Like, that's not a guarantee. If anything, it's always been fair to assume that they're going to come back down to Earth to some degree just because whenever someone produces an outlier result like they did last year, the fairest thing to assume is it's going to come down to Earth to some extent.

But they might-- yeah, they might need that level of gas right now with that offense that is, yeah, we're talking 1.3 goals a game less than last year. Again, this is a small sample. And you're right, they have been controlling-- like, if you look at any of those numbers about shot share, expected goals, scoring chances, five on five-- like, it all looks really good.

Like, they have generally carried the play. All of their games against the Canucks-- like, the one you're describing, like, all the games against Canucks can be described that way. Like, they've been Thatcher Demko'd a lot this season. That's not going to happen every night. But it is-- it's a bit of a dicey situation for them, because teams this good just don't start this--

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: This bad.

NICK ASHBOURNE: It is only 11 games, but, like, you just don't see it. Like, you don't see Stanley Cup contending level teams start like this. Like, that doesn't mean it's impossible for them to get back on track, but there's a reason what we're seeing right now is so rare.

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