Ah, the holidays. A time for everyone to eat, drink and be merry, and for Edmonton Oilers fans to take time to consider what is going on with their team.
Sure, things look all holly and jolly sitting second in the Pacific Division with their early season struggles seemingly behind them. But the cold hard fact remains, there is only one way for the Oilers to go up after losing in the Stanley Cup Finals last year, and it’s not going to be easy to improve.
In fact, they appeared to be doing just the opposite when they began the season in a stumble of a near-championship hangover usually reserved for those hoisting hockey’s Holy Grail, going 0-3 out of the gates and barely treading water at .500 a month in.
They began taking more two-steps-forward and less of one-step-back over November, and were about as good as it gets on a run through December that’s seen them win 11 of 13, while those two losses came by a combined two points to division leaders.
Not too bad.
But not all good, either.
Winning before the Christmas break is one thing. But any Oilers fans who still feels completely crushed by coming oh-so close to the ultimate goal last June only has an all-important question or two on their mind. Is this team built to win the whole thing this time around? And can they get back there, in the first place?
Here is a look at three hot topics that could come back to bite this squad in the new year:
1. BOUCH BOMBING
It’s no secret Evan Bouchard is an offensive defenceman, but at what point do the things he brings to the table offensively no longer make up for all the mistakes being made on the back end?
When times are good, they are really really good. But when they are not, it’s tough to ignore the instinct to pull out the receipt on Bouchard and try to return him from whence he came faster than a teenage girl whose dad gift-wrapped her the ‘perfect’ sweater under the tree.
Take nothing away from Paul Coffey. The legendary Oilers blueliner has worked wonders with Bouchard — not to mention the rest of the defence — since last year’s coaching overhaul. But when it comes to Bouchard, it seems for every dangle and deke that winds up on the year-end highlight reel, there are way too many more giveaways that go for breakaways the other way and end up in the back of Edmonton’s net.
But the most frustrating part is the overall lack of urgency he seems to play with when the Oilers are under the gun and the opposition is pressing, while fans wince every time Bouchard touches the puck. It’s not great.
He sits third on his team and tied for 12th overall with 25 points (six goals, 19 assists) in 34 games. So, the numbers are there. But how long until the equation tilts to management seriously considering leaving the offence up to the actual forwards, and trying to bring in another stalwart defender along the lines of Bouchard’s defensive partner, Mattias Ekholm?
2. BY THE SKINNER THEIR TEETH
Every netminder has one goal in particular they’d like to have back. For Stuart Skinner, chances are it’s the one that squeaked over his pad in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final by Sam Reinhart that put the Florida Panthers ahead 2-1 back on June 24.
And you can bet there’s not a player in that dressing room who wants to earn another shot to do it right than the 26-year-old who is starting for his hometown team.
His young career has been a case study, earning the starting role in his first full season in the NHL on the way to being named an all-star and nominee for the Calder Memorial Trophy, to puck-stopping the Oilers right up to the finish line of the playoffs in his sophomore year.
Of course, it hasn’t been all rainbows and unicorns in the crease for the Oilers during that time. While Skinner’s shown he has what it takes to overcome different types of adversity along the way, this year has been particularly troublesome. At least, to start.
And even now, after the Oilers went on a 7-2 run in his latest starts, his numbers still indicate theirs is a team that needs to outscore their mistakes to find success.
With a .895 save percentage and 2.85 goals-against average on the season, Skinner has a way to go to climb back to his career mark of a .903 save percentage and 2.73 goals-against average. Fortunately for him, the recent results have been masking the numerical details this season. And to his credit, they have been steadily climbing, if slowly.
3. KANE YOU DIG IT?
Love him or hate him, the Oilers are a rougher, tougher group with Evander Kane in the lineup. And that’s been a part of their game that has been seriously lacking this year.
Absent since the beginning of the season to get surgery to repair a sports hernia, the initial 12-week prognosis could put him back in action early on in the new year — perhaps even as early as mid-January.
Last year’s hit leader on the team (by a whole country mile), Kane would give the Oilers a physical option to fill a void that currently has yet to be, despite an increase in aggressive efforts by the likes of Darnell Nurse and Vasily Podkolzin.
There’s no way around it, the Oilers are going to have to round out that area of their game if they ever hope to make another long post-season run, because things aren’t about to start getting any easier or more gentle from here on out.
E-mail: [email protected]
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge