Those who follow me on social media will likely have encountered my standing joke, the one that I only post after the most hair-raising of wins by the Edmonton Oilers. Be it an overtime triumph, a blown lead with a happy ending, an almost-blown lead with a nail-biting finish, or whatever inventive new way our local team might put its fans through the wringer before achieving the desired result, will prompt my tongue-in-cheek instant hindsight. If, on the other hand, the outcome really isn’t in doubt because the Oilers cruised to the finish line with a comfortable lead, I don’t bother.
Lately, however, I’ve noticed a new tendency from the hockey club that winning a tight one is the only type of victory they’ve been able to muster. Last time the locals won a game where they led by more than a single goal at the “last minute of play” announcement was way, way back on January 23 when they thumped Vancouver 6-2.
You might remember that one. The Oilers were playing without Connor McDavid and the Canucks minus the Chaos Giraffe, Tyler Myers. both of whom were serving 3-game suspensions for their actions at the end of the previous match between the two clubs a few days earlier. Zach Hyman scored a brace at even strength, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each connected on the powerplay, and bottom sixers Adam Henrique and Kasperi Kapanen filled out the scoresheet. The Oilers were firing on all cylinders as they ran out to a 5-0 lead, then cruised to a 6-2 final.
That was 16 games and 7 long weeks ago. The Oil have since had just a single game that resembled that laugher vs. the Canucks, this past Saturday when they opened up a 5-1 lead over Dallas by the second Zamboni. Then the Stars struck 3 times in the opening half of the third and it was Hang On Harvey hockey after that. What had seemed a Clear Victory became anything but down the stretch.
I capitalize Clear Victory, a term coined by Scott Reynolds, my former colleague at the now-defunct Copper & Blue. At that time the “Oilogosphere” was in full bloom and inventing all kinds of new ways to analyze the game through observational and statistical analysis. Reynolds went old-school, using simple game scores as an analytical tool to measure team strength, thus focusing on games that weren’t close. Rather than emerging stats like Corsi and Expected Goals, Reynolds zoomed in on on the true currencies of the sport: goals and wins.
In this 2011 post on the subject, Reynolds defined Clear Victories as “games decided by two goals or more (excluding games that [grew] from one to a two- or three-goal margin because of empty-netters)”. In Scott’s words, “there’s almost no correlation from season-to-season in a team’s ability to win one-goal games”, whereas the more decisive outcomes were much more likely to favour the superior hockey club.
His counts certainly supported that. The Presidents’ Trophy winning Canucks posted a league-best 24-10=.706 record in such contests, followed by defending Cup champion Chicago at 22-10=.688. All 6 division champs were among the leaders. Only makes sense, right? Good teams are going to kick butt a lot more often than getting their own kicked.
This being in the heart of the Decade of Darkness, the Oilers were firmly at the “butt kickee” end of the spectrum. It was the Season of H.O.P.E, but the full standings placed them in 30th and last overall and positioned to win the Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Sweepstakes. Their 13-28=.317 record in games decided by 2 or more real goals was the second-worst in the league, with only 29th-place Colorado a shade worse at 8-19=.296. Edmonton’s raw total of 28 Clear Defeats was the most in the league without a throw.
None of which is / should be particularly surprising. The point being that isolating results in such games serves to iron out some of the noise from tight contests where a single bounce or call can make the difference. The line of analysis proved a useful secondary measure of which teams were good, bad or mediocre.
Which brings us back to the Edmonton Oilers of today. The Decade of Darkness is now far in the rear view, succeeded by the much more enjoyable Decade of Davo. The Oilers are a recognized power, defending Western Conference champions and preseason betting favourites to win the Stanley Cup.
64 games into the long season, things aren’t looking so rosy. So happens that 64 games splits nicely into 4 groups of 16 games, precisely the length of Edmonton’s current drought without a CV. Here’s a visual presentation of their game results to this point:
…where the greener the game score, the better. Here’s the key:
The first and last 16-game sets are ugly at a glance, whereas the two contiguous columns in the middle look pretty darn good. Which conforms with how Edmonton’s bungee jump of a season has gone. A very good record in overtime, but a whole lot of hit and miss in regulation, whether the games are close or not.
Here are the sum totals from each of those sets:
In the most recent of them, the ugly 0-4 mark in 2+ goal decisions — all of them 3- or 4- goal losses, actually — is just the tip of the iceberg. In the other dozen contests the club posted a mediocre 4-4-4 record in regulation, making it 4-8-4 overall through 60 minutes. A 3-1 mark in those 4 overtime contests brought their overall mark up to a still unsightly 7-8-1 with a crummy goal differential over half a goal per game to the minus.
Just a massive change from the consecutive 11-4-1 sets that preceded it, and worse than even the soft 8-7-1 record of October and early November that at least included a handful of CV’s. That there have been none of those whatsoever in the most recent 16 speaks to a team locked in a very deep funk.
The causes are manifold. McDavid returned from his suspension for cross-checking in Game 50 but has struggled to regain his form and focus, suffering through one of the toughest stretches of his spectacular career. Was he sour about the league giving him a 3-game ban fresh on the heels of issuing a mere fine to an opponent who slew-footed him? Has he been ill or injured? Too focused on the 4 Nations Face-Off (where he delivered the goods for Team Canada) and on the Stanley Cup playoffs that loom in the not-so-distant future? You’d have to ask him… if you dare. From a distance one can only speculate, and it’s likely not wise to do even that. Before you judge him too harshly, bear in mind that while he has struggled at 5v5, his 3v3 game remains peerless: a primary assist on all 3 overtime winners the Oil produced in this span.
Another core Oiler is defender Mattias Ekholm who has indeed been dealing with physical matters. He was ill before and during 4 Nations, continued to take maintenance days after it was over, and in recent times has missed a couple of games with what is being whispered is a core body issue. The plan was for him to return during the current road trip, but he remains back home in Edmonton. The club misses his steady two-way game, but truth be told they’ve been missing it for a while. He’s been far off his game for most of the recent period that his team has not-so-coincidentally been slumping.
Then there’s #1 netminder Stu Skinner, whose deepening slump is worrisome indeed. In his last 10 appearances, Skinner has topped .900 just twice while suffering the slings and arrows of an outraged fan base.
We dug into the performance of all three of these feature Oilers in our review of Games 51-60, the entirety of which was a subset of the larger 16-game set being considered in this post. It’s been tough times for all three, and others too.
Even Leon Draisaitl, who continues to bring the offence with points in his last 15 games, is just below break-even in goals in that span after being a massive outscorer earlier in the season. Nobody else on the club is on anything close to what could be desrcibed as a hot streak.
It doesn’t take a flash of insight to realize that with several core players struggling, the Oilers aren’t apt to be blowing anyone out, and indeed they haven’t been.
Interesting to compare the current squad to the powerhouse side that took it to the limit last June. The 2023-24 Oilers posted 30 CV’s and 16 defeats, including a highly impressive 27-10=.730 during Knoblauch’s 69 games at the helm. The longest gap between them? Just 4 games. Under the same coach they posted a so-so 9-8 mark in one-goal* matches decided in regulation, and a splendid 10-5 record in games that extended past regulation. 3v3 hockey is a legitimate strength on this squad.
In the playoffs, the Oilers posted a 5-0 record in CV’s in rolling to the Western Conference title — 2 against Los Angeles, 1 vs. Vancouver, 2 vs. Dallas. In the Stanley Cup Finals such games were split 2-2: Florida won Games 1 and 2 by scores of 3-0 and 4-1, with an empty netter in each; Edmonton struck back with an 8-1 win in Game 4 and a 5-1 triumph with 2 empty netters in Game 6.
Make it 7-2 in the full postseason, and an impressive 34-12=.739 during Knoblauch’s 94 games at the helm. Note that roughly half of those games qualified as CV’s, with the Oilers dominating those contests.
Alas, the current season has delivered nothing close to that, with a mediocre 15-13=.536 record in one-sided scores. That’s reflected in good-not-great overall results that see the squad tied for 10th in the league in points percentage, 9th in goals for, 14th in goals against.
Is that all they are? Or is this a team with plenty more to give that just happened to hit the doldrums for an extended period? This observer prefers to lean towards the latter, while recognizing the fact that the season is almost 80% done without clear indicators in place.
Recently at the Cult of Hockey
STAPLES: With clock ticking, Jeff Skinner gets one more look in the top six
STAPLES: ‘There might not be a more scrutinized player in the league’ than Oilers’ goalie
McCURDY: Game grades from 3-2 loss vs Sabres
STAPLES: ‘Fantastic’: Hockey world’s rave review of new Edmonton Oiler
LEAVINS: 9 Things, Mar 09 edition
STAPLES: Player grades from 5-4 win over Dallas
McCURDY: Did the Edmonton Oilers do enough at the deadline?
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social
Follow me on X-Twitter @BruceMcCurdy
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social