A potentially important detail regarding Edmonton Oilers’ player deployment emerged at this morning’s practice:
Left winger Jeff Skinner, a 14-year veteran with 357 goals in 1006 games, had been written in pen by most pundits on a line with Leon Draisaitl and fellow free agent signee Victor Arvidsson. That was before Skinner, 32, had a sluggish pre-season with the squad. He produced 0 points in 4 games while getting burned for 5 goals against in just 44 minutes of 5v5 play.
As of today’s practice, Skinner finds himself outside the top 6, having been swapped out with veteran Mattias Janmark on Draisaitl’s left flank, instead finding himself on the checking line with Adam Henrique and Connor Brown.
Hard to imagine that the move has any sort of permanence — Skinner is no more a “checker” than Janmark can be considered a scorer. Consider that Skinner has ten 20-goal seasons to his credit, including five north of 30. Janmark’s career high is 19, and that occurred back in 2017-18. In the 6 seasons since, he’s scored 11 or fewer including just 4 in 2023-24.
What Janmark can do, though, is play solid defensive hockey. That may be foremost in Kris Knoblauch’s mind after a brutal coverage error by Skinner and Draisaitl led to Carson Soucy being left unmarked in the slot to score a ridiculously easy goal that stood up as the game-winner in Vancouver’s 4-1 win over Edmonton in the pre-season finale.
It’s not like the projected second line was producing scads of goals to cover off their defensive lapses.
The Oilers wrapped up their pre-season with 3 wins, just 1 of them in regulation. Meanwhile, all 5 of their losses were by a margin of 3 goals or more. Overall, the Oilers scored just 18 goals while allowing 36, which is beyond brutal.
The good news, of course, is that all those stats can be thrown in the compost heap effective immediately. Pre-season results mean flat nothing. Pre-season performance on the other hand set the foundation, and Oilers fans have plenty of reason to be concerned after such an abysmal run, not just in a watered-down first week but also in “dress rehearsal” games in Seattle (6-2 loss) and Vancouver (4-1 loss) to close out the slate.
The other key factor is that players have very different priorities during this phase. Some are playing for jobs, or to make an impression for their next opportunity. Others are simply getting up to game speed, or finding their way with new teams. In the case of Jeff Skinner, both.
Fair to say it hasn’t gone well, to the point that Knoblauch has seen fit for a reset. Whether that wake-up call is just for a practice or two or will extend into the season opener on Wednesday night remains to be seen, but it remains a situation to watch.