The Edmonton Oilers are trying to end a drought that has lingered since 1987, and this season brings a different kind of pressure. That’s the longest active division-title drought across the four major North American pro sports, and it hangs over a team that has still found ways to matter in the playoffs.
Last season, though, the run fell flat early, with a first-round loss to the Anaheim Ducks. The Oilers should at least enter this year with fresh legs.
A busy offseason followed that disappointment. Edmonton moved on from longtime defenseman Darnell Nurse and brought in two new defenders.
The coaching staff also got a major overhaul, with Kris Knoblauch and associate coach Mark Stuart dismissed and Mike Babcock stepping in as head coach in a decision that raised eyebrows. D.J.
Smith was also added behind the bench. The idea is clear: new voices, new habits, and a cleaner way of playing.
That’s especially important because the Oilers have repeatedly failed to make the most of a division that hasn’t exactly been a buzzsaw. Slow starts and inconsistency have been a recurring problem, and it has cost them.
This time, Babcock is expected to have the group ready from the jump. If Edmonton is going to finally take the Pacific, three areas have to move in the right direction.
The first and most obvious one is in net. General manager Stan Bowman completely reworked the goaltending setup by trading for Devon Levi from the Buffalo Sabres and signing Frederik Andersen in free agency.
Andersen arrives with a Stanley Cup championship from his time with the Carolina Hurricanes and posted strong numbers through the first three rounds before fading in the Final and eventually losing the crease to Brandon Bussi. The 36-year-old has a .913 save percentage in 552 games, but he’ll begin the season on the injured list, leaving the rest of the load to others.
That puts a spotlight on Levi, who remains the biggest unknown in the group. He has put together a solid AHL career, but that hasn’t yet carried over to the NHL, where he has an .894 save percentage in 39 games. Edmonton believes he has starter potential, and the early portion of the season could matter a lot while Andersen is unavailable.
Then there’s Tristan Jarry, whose time with the Oilers has not gone well since he arrived from the Pittsburgh Penguins last December. He posted a rough .858 save percentage in 19 games, including 16 starts, after the trade.
Still, there were encouraging signs in the preseason. He stopped 15 of 16 shots against the Winnipeg Jets in the opener, then turned aside 25 of 26 against the Vancouver Canucks while Edmonton dressed mostly AHL players and Vancouver leaned heavily on its NHL group.
The Oilers need that version of Jarry to show up more often.
Better structure in front of the goaltenders should help too. Edmonton gave up too many dangerous looks last season, and the new coaching setup is expected to tighten that up. Cleaner puck management, fewer breakdowns, and less chaos in the defensive zone could go a long way toward making the crease look a lot safer.
The second key is the penalty kill. Last season’s unit finished 20th in the league at 77.8 percent, and before the trade deadline in March, it had sunk to 26th at 76.7 percent.
Edmonton tried to fix that problem by adding Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson at the deadline, and the results improved sharply down the stretch. From that point through the end of the regular season, the Oilers killed penalties at an 81.6 percent clip, which ranked 10th.
Then the playoffs went sideways, with a disastrous 50 percent success rate that helped end their year.
Now the Oilers get a full season with Murphy and Dickinson in the mix, and Smith overseeing the penalty kill. That alone gives the group a much stronger foundation.
If that unit climbs into the top 10, it likely means the goaltending is doing its part too. Those two things tend to travel together.
Edmonton still finished second in the Pacific last season with a shaky kill, so a real improvement there could change the ceiling.
The third piece is depth scoring. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can’t carry the whole load every night. The Oilers need production from all four lines, and Josh Samanski, Jason Dickinson, Mathieu Joseph, Colton Dach, and Trent Frederic are among the players who have to give them more.
Babcock made that expectation clear after the first skate of training camp. “What we’re trying to do is send the message on how we want to play.
We’ve asked them to learn the details and then find your game within our game. So if you know the details and everyone’s detailed, everybody on the team can be important.
When you’re not detailed enough, no one knows where to go, and only the best guys get to be important. We’re going to play without the puck, and to play here, you’ve got to be fit.
We’re going to play 12 forwards, and everyone’s going to be important. So you have to have a role, and you have to understand what we expect”, Babcock stated after the first skate during training camp.
That message matters because Edmonton’s bottom six has not always had a clear enough lane to make an impact. If Babcock follows through and keeps everyone involved, that could create more confidence and more output from the depth group. For the Oilers, buy-in is the whole point.
Will they finally win the Pacific Division?
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