Segment review #3, Games 21-30
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With a 6-3 win over arch rival Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday, Edmonton Oilers reached the 30-game mark of the 2024-25 season on a major roll. Just in time for our latest 10-game segment review, which this time around gives us a chance to analyze what is going right with the Oilers.
The three segments to date have featured three very different versions of the local NHL squad. In the first 10 games they dug something of a hole for themselves, then in the second they climbed back to the middle of the pack. Finally, the most recent set has seen the Oilers produce their best hockey of the season. After a desultory loss in Game 21, they rolled off 3- and 5-game winning streaks sandwiching a single loss, a 1-0 defeat in Vegas where frankly they deserved better. But so it goes in the NHL where many an individual game is decided by puck luck or a hot goalie.
That game aside, in recent times Edmonton’s percentages have been running hot. Real hot.
Season to date by segment
2024-25
Games 1 – 10: 4-5-1, .450 | 22 GF, 35 GA | 343 SF, 261 SA | .930 PDO
Games 11-20: 6-3-1, .650 | 33 GF, 27 GA | 318 SF, 249 SA | .995 PDO
Games 21-30: 8-2-0, .800 | 42 GF, 22 GA | 314 SF, 281 SA | 1.055 PDO
To recap, over every team’s last 10 games the Oilers rank second (behind Tampa Bay) in goals for; second (behind Los Angeles) in goals against, and second (behind Washington) in points percentage. In the process they have shot up the standings from middle of the Western Conference pack to a solid fifth in the West with a .633 points percentage (18-10-2).
In the latest segment the Oilers again outshot their combined opponents by a comfortable margin, though a little less comfortable than the established rate. That slight decline can largely be attributed to score effects: in the most recent set the Oil held the lead for roughly 5 hours of the 10, trailed for just 2 hours, and were tied for the other 3.
The bigger factor by far was how often their shooters made their shots, and how often their goalies made the saves. As the season has progressed those percentages have ramped up, up, up at both ends of the sheet. That’s represented above by the net percentage figure known as PDO, which in my lingo is short form for Percentage Driven Outcomes. As a general rule that figure hovers in the general vicinity of 1.000, but can run hot and cold over stretches. Already in 2024-25 they’ve produced both the worst and the best PDO for a 10-game stretch of any Oilers team in the past 3+ seasons.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
The Oilers have been persistent outshooters for quite some time now, a dozen consecutive segments and 16 of the last 17 dating back to the waning days of Dave Tippett. As mentioned above that shot share has actually ramped down slightly this season, settling at around 53% in the most recent set after the Oil yielded a season-high 41 shots (previous high was 35) to the Vegans on Saturday afternoon. Once again, score effects.
But the conversion rates are by far the major factor. They were historically terrible in the first 10 games, during which opposing shooters were more than twice as likely to score on a given shot than were the Oilers. That stabilized in Games 11-20 with conversion rates of roughly 10% at both ends of the sheet. But in the most recent set, it’s was all Oil.
The individual percentage columns show that improvement has occurred at both ends, and in each segment. In the most recent one, shooters and goalies alike improved by 3 full percentage points over the prior. Combine those elite rates with positive shot shares and the result is a +20 goal share and a whole lot more wins than losses.
While numbers of shots is useful data, they don’t tell us much about the quality of said shots. That’s where we at the Cult of Hockey try to colour between the lines with our longstanding project conducting video analysis of the best of those shots. In the third segment the Oilers produced 163/276=59% of Grade A shots in all situations, and a similar 68/116=59% of the subset of 5-alarm shots that are considered the very best scoring chances. That doesn’t fully explain how they produced 42/64=66% of the goals, but it certainly shines some light on the subject.
Let’s turn to individual stats compiled over the most recent set.
Goalies
Stu Skinner has returned to the form he displayed for much of last season. After a rough outing in Game 21, a 5-3 loss to the Wild in which the entire squad got outplayed, he reeled off 6 consecutive games with a save percentage north of .925 in each, a splendid number in anyone’s books. He’s been among the hottest stoppers in the NHL.
Behind him, the steady Calvin Pickard, has now run off 9 straight starts allowing 3 goals or fewer. In the most recent set of games, that was good enough for 3 wins in 3 starts.
Defencemen
No surprise to see Evan Bouchard atop the scoring ledger with 9 points in 10 games. Behind him, stalwart Darnell Nurse is enjoying his best run of play in years, leading the D in average ice time (tied with Bouchard), shots and plus, in the process incurring a startling 0 (zero) penalty minutes. Perhaps that latter figure is the best indicator of a man very much in control of the play, and of his game. Make no mistake, one of the keys to the Oilers’ recent suppression of powerplay goals against has been their ability to stay out of the sin bin, an area where historically Nurse has been a frequent offender.
Leader in the PIM department was Mattias Ekholm whose 4 penalty infractions were 2 more than any other Oiler of any position.
Surprise leader in goals was depth defender Troy Stecher whose 5 points in 10 games was a welcome boost from the third pairing.
Forwards
Leon Draisaitl topped the scoring charts in both goals and points for the third segment in a row, no mean feat on a team that includes the fabulous Connor McDavid. But Leon has been fabulous in his own right; he’s scored 2+ points in each of his last 5 games and in 12 of his last 16, a remarkable run. Moreover, he’s been outscoring, matching last segment’s outstanding +9 in the current set.
Another number Draisaitl matched from last time was 0 (zero) PIM over the most recent 10 games. He’s now gone 23 straight games without a penalty, and has taken just a single minor since being benched briefly by Kris Knoblauch back in Game 4. At that moment he had taken a penalty in 4 out of 4 games; since then, 1 in 26. Call Leon the modern-day Stan Mikita, with a stick tap to Knoblauch for playing his cards perfectly.
As might be expected, McDavid was hot on Draisaitl’s heels with just 1 fewer point over the 10 games, followed by the usual large gap to the next guy. Nonetheless, the whole rest of that list is highly encouraging, as it features no fewer than eight other attackers who tallied at least 5 points. As a whole the supporting cast of forwards scored 23 goals in the last 10 games, after producing just 19 tallies in the opening 20. A sea change in secondary scoring, as the whole cast of characters found ways to contribute.
Player grades
We close in our usual fashion by reviewing the set of 10 games through the lens of our own subjective ratings here at the Cult of Hockey. Regular readers will know that we grade on a scale of 1 to 10, the performance of every Edmonton Oilers player in every game the team plays, based on a combination of observation and interpretation of statistical output. Here are average grades for Games 21-30 along with our customary thumbnail comment summarizing each player’s contribution over that span:
Results by grader, third segment:
- David Staples — 4 games, 4-0-0, average grade 6.5
- Bruce McCurdy — 3 games, 2-1-0, average grade 5.8
- Kurt Leavins – 3 games, 2-1-0, average grade 5.8
- Segment totals – 10 games, 8-2-0, average grade 6.1
- Game-by-game grades, season-to-date (spreadsheet)
- Segment review, Games 1-10
- Segment review, Games 11-20
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