Ten games in, the Edmonton Oilers are sitting on an 8-1-1 start, and they’ve done it while taking a beating on the injury front. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got into his first game of the season in Thursday’s wild 6-5 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes, but the list of absences around him has already piled up.
Zach Hyman, Jason Dickinson, and Jake Walman have all missed games, while Mattias Ekholm and Devon Levi were both injured in Thursday’s contest, with Ekholm listed as a week to ten days and Levi at three weeks. Matt Savoie, Frederik Andersen, and Mattias Janmark still haven’t played this season and are expected to be out for a while.
The biggest reason Edmonton has powered through all that? Its stars are carrying the load in a huge way.
Connor McDavid has 31 points in ten games, a pace Wayne Gretzky never reached over the same span. Only Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy have posted more explosive ten-game starts to open a season.
Leon Draisaitl has 21 points, good for second in the league, and Evan Bouchard is tied for fourth with 19. With those three combining for 7.1 points per game, the Oilers are not leaving much to chance.
That kind of scoring burst doesn’t explain everything, though. The schedule has been forgiving for much of the opening month.
Carolina was the toughest opponent Edmonton has faced so far. The Canucks beat the Oilers on opening night, but they’ve since dropped nine straight and have looked like a team heading the wrong direction.
San Jose has been irritating, yet the Sharks had to wait until Thursday to get their first regulation win in Ottawa. Anaheim isn’t the same club it was last season, and while Seattle and Utah have both started well, they still have plenty to prove before anyone treats their standing as more than a surprise.
Minnesota, which was outstanding last season, came into Rogers Place missing three regular defenders, including Brock Faber and Jared Spurgeon. Edmonton’s upcoming slate doesn’t look threatening until mid-November, when the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Hurricanes show up on an eastern road swing.
There’s also a clear shift in how this team is playing without the puck. Mike Kelly laid it out on NHL Network on October 15th: last season, the Oilers ranked 30th in rush chances against, giving up the third most in the league.
By October 15th this year, they were allowing the fewest rush chances in the NHL. In simple terms, they’ve stopped handing out easy transition looks at the same rate they used to.
That change has a lot to do with Mike Babcock’s approach. Edmonton has become far more conservative with the puck, and the results show it.
Bob Stauffer has been stressing the idea of getting pucks deep and forcing the defence to work, and that lines up with what Kelly pointed out: the Oilers have gone from dumping the puck the second least often last season to the second most often this season. That same trend shows up in the numbers for individual players, including the stars.
Babcock wants safer decisions with the puck and a hard chase to win it back.
Then there’s the shooting heater. Through ten games, Edmonton owns a 1.065 PDO in all situations, second-best in the league according to Natural Stat Trick.
Before Thursday’s shootout win, the Oilers actually led the NHL at 1.068. The main driver is the finishing touch.
Their 18.55% shooting percentage leads the league by 3.55%, an enormous gap. For perspective, Dallas led the NHL last season at 13.15%.
The power play is humming too, sitting second in the league at 35.3%, but that’s not the whole story. Edmonton also leads the NHL in five-on-five shooting percentage at 15.25%, and that number is doing plenty of work behind the scenes.
The goaltending side of the ledger has improved as well, even if the raw numbers don’t scream it. Last season, the Oilers were last in 5-on-5 on-ice save percentage at 88.95%.
This year, they’re at 89.9%, which ranks 18th. That’s not elite, but it is better.
And with some of the wild games Edmonton has already played, including that 9-7 win, the netminding has probably looked better than the team’s on-ice save percentage suggests.
There’s no getting around the fact that a few of these numbers are too hot to last forever. Still, the Oilers have plenty to like right now. Their superstars are ripping through opponents, the supporting cast is doing enough to keep things from slipping, and even with the injury pile growing, the start has been as strong as the record says.
In Other News...
Oilers Suddenly Have Questions Their Record Was Hiding
The Oilers early record had bought them plenty of breathing room, but the 7-2 loss to the Maple Leafs in Toronto was a reminder that the standings can hide as much as they reveal. Edmonton fell to 8-2-1 and suffered only its second regulation loss of the season, even with Leon Draisaitl scoring twice to keep the offense from going completely quiet.
What stood out more than the score was how exposed Edmonton looked in its own zone and in a few line combinations that never seemed to settle the game. Former Oilers Jack Roslovic and Troy Stecher were part of the damage, and the rough night in goal only added to the unease, leaving the kind of follow-up questions that tend to linger after a teams first real blowout loss. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Blue Line Just Lost A Key Piece At The Worst Time
The Oilers are dealing with a tough break on the back end at a time when every defensive minute matters. Mattias Ekholm is sidelined with a concussion, leaving Edmonton without one of the stabilizing pieces that usually helps set the tone in its own zone and transition the puck cleanly up ice.
That absence is especially noticeable because Ekholm typically works alongside Evan Bouchard, a pairing that has helped drive strong possession for the Oilers this season. With Calgarys Mikael Backlund nearing a return and other Western Conference injury updates starting to shift, Edmontons own blue line suddenly has a much more urgent question hanging over it. [Read more 🡒]
Jack Roslovic Returns To Edmonton With Oilers Fans Watching One Thing
Jack Roslovics early run with the Toronto Maple Leafs has given him a little more visibility than usual, and it has also put his old NHL stops back in the spotlight. Since signing a two-year deal with Toronto, Roslovic has picked up four goals and 10 points in his first 10 games, including a goal and three points against the Columbus Blue Jackets and an assist against the New York Rangers, two of the teams he has already faced from his previous stops around the league.
For Edmonton fans, the more interesting part is seeing Roslovic look back on his time with the Oilers while sizing up the next chapter of his career. He has already spent time with Columbus, New York and Edmonton, and he had plenty of praise for captain Connor McDavids skill and work ethic. What stands out now is how Roslovic views the lessons he took from those stops, and what his return to Edmonton might mean when the attention turns back to the building he knows well. [Read more 🡒]