Oilers looking for themselves

Stanley Cup finalists last spring, the Edmonton Oilers are having a so-so start to the season. It’s not unsalvageable, but some departments can certainly do better. Five things to know about the Canadian’s opponents this Monday evening.

Nurse in the infirmary

Defenseman Darnell Nurse was unable to finish Saturday’s game in Toronto after Maple Leafs Ryan Reaves hit him hard in the head. Nurse recovered a puck behind his net and, as he was about to cross the goal line, Reaves, who was arriving at full speed, shouldered him. Bloodied from a deep cut on his forehead, the Oilers player left the meeting. His team later said he had an “upper body” injury and did not provide an additional update Sunday.

Reaves, meanwhile, unsurprisingly received a match penalty, and was subsequently suspended by the NHL for five games. The player safety department, to justify its decision, noted that the head had been the main point of impact, that Nurse had been injured during the sequence and that Reaves has a serious disciplinary history – this is the fourth suspension of his career and he was fined twice. We can imagine that Nurse will miss this Monday evening’s duel against the Canadian, since the organization recalled defender Josh Brown from his school club in Bakersfield.

Below expectations

If the playoffs started these days, the Oilers would be far from guaranteed to participate. The team is in fact in the pack of clubs which enter or leave the portrait of the series from match to match. After 18 games, this campaign’s record (9-7-2) is much better than last year’s record at the same date (5-12-1), but the group that moved to a Cup victory Five months ago, Stanley was slow to find his way.

The Huiliers still create a lot of scoring chances, but struggle to find the back of the net – the Canadian, despite his setbacks, has scored one more goal than his Monday rivals since the start of the season. And special teams just don’t work. It’s especially glaring on the numerical disadvantage, while a third of the penalties taken have resulted in a goal so far. The Oilers, nevertheless, are in the midst of a happy streak of 3-0-1 in their last four games.

McDavid, Draisaitl et… ?

Don’t worry about Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, everything is fine with them. The first became, a few days ago, the fourth fastest player to reach the 1,000 career points mark. And the second, with already 24 points, is among the 10 best in the NHL. The problem is that after them, all the attackers are curiously discreet, while the acquisitions of last summer suggested that the Alberta offensive machine would be even more powerful.

Indeed, after 18 games, no one among Zach Hyman (8 points), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (8), Mattias Janmark (8), Jeff Skinner (6), Viktor Arvidsson (5) and Adam Henrique (3) produced a pace of at least half a point per game. McDavid and Draisaitl sometimes look like supermen, but they obviously can’t do everything on their own.

Spare wheels in defense

We mentioned above the setbacks with a numerical disadvantage. It’s hard not to link them to the departures of Cody Ceci and Vincent Desharnais, two of the main defenders used by the club short a man last year. By also letting Philip Broberg join the St. Louis Blues, who had given him a hostile offer, the Oilers had to find plans B and C on defense.

Internally, support personnel like Brett Kulak and Troy Stecher rose to prominence, and we found low-cost players in Travis Dermott and Ty Emberson. The worst part is that it works: at five against five, the Oilers are among the best teams in the league at muzzling opposing attacks.

However, if, on top of that, Darnell Nurse were to miss games, this team would start rolling with a lot of spare wheels simultaneously.

The guards, again

This is absolutely nothing new or unexpected for this team, but if the numerical advantage is struggling so much, and if half of the games have ended in defeats while the defense is doing its job, it is necessarily because that the goalkeepers do not save their club.

Together, Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard have already given away a good ten too many goals, calculates the Evolving-Hockey site. It’s… a lot. With an efficiency rating of .877 and a goals-against average of 3.28, Skinner doesn’t help his cause if he dreams of defending the Canadian net at the Four Nations Showdown, whose rosters will be revealed at the start of December.

Last year, the same Skinner managed to redeem a difficult start to the season. We therefore know that he has the capacity to bounce back. But how many times can he succeed?