As the Edmonton Oilers look to turn around another slow start to the season and prepare for Friday’s home game against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, we debut a new weekly feature. Postmedia beat reporter Gerry Moddejonge checks in on this week’s Three Hot Topics …
1. What exactly is happening here? (Again)
OK, so things might not have started out exactly according to plan. But, so what?
It was only a year ago this club got off to an atrocious start, only to turn it into an appearance in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. So, no matter how bad it seems, anything is always possible, right?
Right …
Right up until it no longer is, of course.
And who knows when the point of no return will come?
Didn’t this team learn anything after last year’s 2-9-1 start got their coach fired? And it took incredible win streaks of eight and then 16 games in a row to carry them back into playoff contention.
By that math, the Oilers, currently 2-4-1, could lose their next four games and still be ahead of where they started out a year ago.
If this team was looking to coast into a new season on the coattails of reaching last year’s championship final, where one goal ended up determining the difference between the winner and the loser, that’s all came to a crashing halt.
If you wanted to pinpoint a particular moment, it was when the Oilers fell to 0-3 on the year in a loss to the rival Calgary Flames, who started out 3-0 and don’t seem to care that they weren’t on anyone’s radar coming into this season.
I mean, what kind of alternate universe is this, anyway?
Oh, sure. The Oilers will turn things around. Eventually.
Connor McDavid & Co. can’t be held at bay over an entire 82-game regular season. But the question becomes: Just how deep is too deep a hole for them to climb out of if they still hope to have any chance of reaching the top?
2. Where did the goaltending go?
Can someone please stop the insanity? Or come up with any sort of stop at all?
The Oilers are desperate at this point and could save themselves some headaches if they could figure out a way to — simply put — make some more saves.
Stuart Skinner looked anything but the all-star, Calder finalist from his rookie season, who would go onto backstop his team all the way to the finish line of the Stanley Cup final the following year.
Yeah, that guy. Where has he gone?
And while we’re at it, if his backup was hoping to take a bigger role during the starter’s struggles, think again. Calvin Pickard was only one-thousandth of a per cent better than Skinner’s .851 save percentage, as the two sat 47th and 48th overall with just one win apiece coming into this week.
Skinner had a much better showing in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, making 30 saves for a .907 save percentage. But it wasn’t enough to stop them both from dropping down the list to sit 49th and 50th heading into Friday’s game against the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins (7 p.m., Sportsnet).
Defensively, the Oilers haven’t done much in the way of helping their goalies out. And the offence hasn’t exactly alleviated any pressure by way of goal support.
But, at the same time, the goaltending hasn’t stolen any wins for this club, not against anyone other than bottom-feeding teams, anyway.
If the Oilers aren’t going to be pumping in five goals a game, then the goaltending needs to sharpen up substantially.
3. (E)special(ly perplexing) teams
Can’t score on the man advantage? Can’t stop other teams on theirs?
What a difference one year can make.
Going from the second-best power play in last year’s playoffs (29.3%) to sitting tied for 27th out of 32 teams (10.5%) is only slightly less mindboggling than a penalty kill going from a playoff-best 94.3% to falling all the way into the league’s basement at 54.6%.
Edmonton’s special teams are offering a special case study, indeed.
Not so long ago, a Leon Draisaitl-led power play was the closest thing to automatic as there could be in the NHL, establishing a league-record 32.4% success rate in 2022-23.
And Edmonton’s penalty kill was so good in last year’s playoffs, they also managed not one, but two shorthanded goals against the Florida Panthers to help climb out of an 0-3 series deficit.
Truly the stuff of legend. But, oh, how the mighty seem to have fallen.
— Submit your question for the next Three Hot Topics at either of the following:
E-mail: [email protected]
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge