The Edmonton Oilers are rolling early in the 2026-27 season, and it’s not just the headline names driving the charge.
As the calendar turns toward the back half of October, Edmonton has been scoring, winning and showing a different kind of look along the way. The team is finding ways to get it done beyond the usual fireworks, and from the outside it sure seems like they’re building something that hasn’t always been common around these parts: a defensive system.
Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard have obviously been central to the start, but the stars can’t carry every shift. The winning streak Edmonton is on has just as much to do with the bottom six forwards, the bottom pairing on defense and the goaltending as it does with the offense.
Ryan Shea is one of the first names in that group to jump off the page. He wasn’t exactly a marquee addition when he signed as a free agent this summer, but he’s backed up a strong preseason with a clean first two weeks of the regular season.
Shea is plus-4, has logged the third-most minutes among Oilers skaters and has chipped in a goal and two assists through five games. That kind of start suggests the production he put up in the final year of his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins wasn’t a fluke.
Max Jones hasn’t had a spotless run, and his minus-4 rating makes that plain. But the larger picture is more encouraging than the raw number might suggest.
Every minus on Jones’ ledger came in two-game series that included a 9-7 boondoggle of a win over the Vancouver Canucks. Since then, he’s been a steady even in the games that followed, not scoring and not getting scored against.
That alone doesn’t guarantee he sticks with the pro club forever, but it does mean he’s not costing Edmonton during the roughly 10 minutes a night he’s been on the ice. Jones has also added 10 hits and three takeaways.
Devon Levi’s numbers still carry the stain of Game 2, and it’s a rough one. He’s sitting on 7 goals against and a .653 save percentage, which is an ugly outlier that needs a lot of better nights to smooth out.
Still, a shaky first impression from a young goalie in his first run with a new team isn’t hard to understand, and Levi has looked much sharper since then. In his other two starts, he posted save percentages of 0.950 and .0935.
For Edmonton, that kind of goaltending has been rare enough to matter, and Levi is already making his presence felt when he gets the chance.
In Other News...
Oilers May Have Pulled Off Two Steals And One Looks Even Bigger
The early returns on Edmontons recent trade work have been hard to ignore, especially with Vasily Podkolzin giving the forward group a burst the Oilers could use. He has scored seven goals in six games and already looks like the kind of addition that can push deeper into the lineup over time, not just fill a spot in the middle six. For a team that has opened the season with a strong record, those kinds of quick returns can make a front office look awfully sharp.
Devon Levi has added a different kind of value in goal, staying undefeated and turning in impressive numbers in his recent starts. His arrival gave Edmonton another option in a position where stability always matters, and the fact that both moves are paying off at once has only raised the profile of the deals. One looks like a timely boost, the other may be starting to feel like a bigger swing altogether, which is exactly the sort of outcome the Oilers were hoping for. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Keep Winning But This Latest Escape Raises A Real Debate
The Oilers kept their unbeaten run rolling with a 4-1 win over the Kings, moving to 5-0-1 and remaining the NHLs only team without a regulation loss. Leon Draisaitl helped drive the offense, Vasily Podkolzin scored twice, and Connor McDavid piled up four assists in his 800th game, another reminder that Edmonton can still tilt a night its way even when the shot totals say otherwise.
Devon Levi may have been the biggest reason it all held together. He turned aside 39 of 40 shots while Edmonton spent long stretches defending rather than dictating, which only sharpened the conversation around how sustainable this start really is. The wins are piling up, but the formula has looked different enough each night that the Oilers early-season success now comes with a lingering question about what happens when the margin for error finally shrinks. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Face A Goaltending Decision That Could Define Their Season
Early in the season, the Oilers are already staring at a familiar but urgent problem in net, with Tristan Jarry, Frederik Andersen and Devon Levi all under scrutiny as the club tries to steady the position. It is the kind of issue that can quietly shape everything around it, from the way Edmonton manages its games to how much pressure lands on the skaters in front of the crease.
The market for a fix looks complicated. Connor Hellebuyck, Sam Montembeault, Jordan Binnington and Adin Hill all surface as possible answers, but each comes with real obstacles tied to contract status, performance concerns or the sheer difficulty of prying a goalie loose. For now, Edmonton may be left weighing whether the cleanest move is no move at all, and simply hoping one of its current options settles in before the season gets away from it. [Read more 🡒]