The US president always gives a state of the union address to Congress once a year, so I figured why not give a state of the franchise address at different points in the season? The Edmonton Oilers are in a very good position right now. It may be early in the season right now, but this is an encouraging sign for the future, sample size notwithstanding. They’re the juggernaut that just won’t stop.
Right now the Oilers are not only leading the division but the league with a perfect 5-0 record. They’re currently ahead of San Jose – of all teams – in second place, and Calgary, another bizarro world entry, in third place. For the record I don’t believe San Jose and Calgary are as good as their current records indicate, nor are LA and Vegas as bad as their slow starts indicate. Things have a way of balancing themselves out in the NHL, so Calgary and San Jose will both come crashing down to earth eventually while Vegas and LA will get their act together as well.
But all of that is a debate for another day.
As you would expect, the McDrai duo are leading the charge not just for the Oilers, but are 1-2 in league scoring once again. Once again as expected, Mcdavid is leading the charge.
It’s funny when you think about it, but on any other team, Draisaitl would be the undisputed number one center. We’re blessed to have both of them on our team.
Anyway, none of that is a surprise. What is a surprise is what’s happening with the folks after the dynamic duo. Jesse Puljujarvi has been a pleasant surprise as well. He has two goals and eight points in five games so far. We knew he was good, we just didn’t know he was that good. Not everyone can play with Mcdavid and Draisaitl, but Puljujarvi fits there like a glove, using his size to wreak havoc in front of the net and to clear space for the ultimate snipers in the NHL.
He currently sits in sixth place in the league in scoring right now – that’s three Oilers in the top 10 in league scoring. No other franchise has more than one.
Other notable performances in the top six are Zach Hyman, another guy who this season has fit with the Oilers like chips and salsa. Thanks to three PP goals, he currently sports 5-1-6 in five games for the team.
Nuge is the other guy of note. He has seven assists in five games. A bit snake-bitten in the goals department to be sure, but helping a teammate score in many ways is just as good as scoring yourself. Hyman sits at 16th in league scoring, Nuge at 14th. Hyman also plays on the Oilers 1st unit PP and 2nd unit PK (shoutout to dailyfaceoff.com for at long last publishing PK as well as PP units).
In case you’re counting, that’s five Oilers in the top 20 in league scoring. No other team has more than three of their players in the top 20 (San Jose – again disconcerting…..).
Five of Six top-six forwards in the top 20 in league scoring. Doesn’t get any better than that as far as your top six goes.
And it’s not just the top six that’s on fire. Warren Foegele has been the catalyst for a third line that’s about as good as you can get for depth players. Foegele himself has 1-2-3 in five games, and with a +1 to boot. Derek Ryan has already scored a key goal for the Oilers, providing them with defensively responsible play as well as being even in the five games so far.
Oh, and did I mention Ryan has taken the second most faceoffs of any Oilers and is so far at 59.1%? Talk about a guy who can take some heat off of Draisaitl. For the first time in forever, we finally have a third line that can do something more than just give the top six a breather for as little time as possible.
In fact, in terms of faceoffs, we can finally say we have four centers that are all capable in the faceoff circle. Mcdavid, for whom this has long been one of the few weak spots in his game, is up to 52%, while Dr. Drai is rolling along at 64.5%, while Devin Shore is at 68.8% (that’s bound to come down a bit at some point).
The wingers are doing pretty good in the faceoff circle too, Kyle Turris is at 57.1%, Zach Hyman 64.3%. The only guy who has a black cloud over his faceoffs is Nuge, who is plodding along at 37.8%. He has to be better – maybe he should ask Mcdavid what he did to get better on faceoffs.
Even Zack Kassian is rising up like a phoenix from the ashes, putting up 3-2-5 in four games.
The only top-six forward who has been a disappointment so far is Kailer Yamamoto, who has put up no offence in the first five games. Let’s hope he finds his groove again as the season goes on, if all six forwards in the top six find their scoring groove the Oilers’ firepower will be tough to stop in both the regular season and the playoffs. Lots of time left in the season, so here’s hoping.
As you would expect, the Oilers once again have the #1 PP in the league at a whopping 47.1%. It would be unrealistic for the team to finish at that level, so expect it to level off a bit but still lead the league.
The PK isn’t quite as impressive, but it’s still ninth in the league at 88.2%. That was the same spot they finished in last year. For the record, you can see who’s on what PP and PK unit here. It’s a bit of a surprise to me that Derek Ryan is on the second unit PP and first unit PK, as is Evan Bouchard (the PP I get, but the PK I guess he’s trying to mold him into a more all-around player).
Zack Kassian has justifiably snatched Kailer Yamamoto’s spot on the PP away from him, it’ll be up to Yamo himself to get it back. Also a bit surprised to see Foegele on the PP, although it’s only the second unit so no biggie. But hey, why not?
It has occurred to me that for the first time in forever, the Oilers have two legitimate PP and PK units that Tippett can roll out one after the other if he wants to. In the past, the second units of both special teams were basically just filled out by warm bodies whose sole purpose was to give the legit guys a breather at times, but now just like with the first three lines at evens we have legit units that can play a little more evenly spread out. Good for Tippett to have that option. A good byproduct of much better depth in the organization.
What about on D? Well, Darnell Nurse is doing this thing, putting up three assists in five games. Two of those are on the PP, so that’s a bit concerning, but it’s a little too early in the season to start ringing alarm bells.
The biggest surprise on D is Evan Bouchard. Tippett has been spelling him in and out of the top pairing due to the struggles of Tyson Barrie, and he hasn’t looked out of place. If that continues, look for Tippett to staple him to that pairing permanently and for Holland to perhaps trade Barrie in the offseason – because after all, you don’t pay a Dman $4.5 million a season to play in the third pairing. Maybe Holland will trade him in season, who knows?
Anyway, Bouchard has 1-2-3 in five games in the early going, with a +5 to boot, pretty good for a guy getting his first taste of tough competition.
Barrie vs. Bouchard will be an interesting horse race to keep track of as the season goes on.
What about the all-new second pairing? Well as you would expect there’s a bit of a feeling-out process for both of them as they get used to playing with each other, so they won’t be as impressive a pairing in the early going as they’re slated to be. Keith just got an assist last night against Vegas and is -1 in the early going, while Cody Ceci has the same one assist and is even in the early going. As these two get more used to playing with each other, expect their numbers – both offensively and defensively – to go up. Both players are currently part of the second PK unit.
Slater Koekkoek has been pretty much a generic vanilla type, producing no offence and a +1 in three games of work. He’s been spelled off by the slightly better offensively Kris Russell for two games so far, producing one assist in those two games and even. I don’t expect that to change through the season as both players will likely continue to spell off each other depending on whether Tippett is looking for offence or defence on any given night, and obviously performance.
We’re very much rolling along in goal, as well. Mike Smith has taken the majority of the starts in the early going, but Koskinen in his couple of starts has done well, as he’s 12th in the league in sv% with .943 and 18th in GAA with 2.03. Smith, who has a minor injury at the time of this writing, has started three games and is .920 with a 3.08 GAA.
Mike Smith was in net for the crazy 6-5 Anaheim game so that accounts for his high GAA. This will likely settle down closer to his career average of 2.69 eventually. It remains to be seen if the currently called up Stuart Skinner will actually get into any games right now.
But, it looks like the Oilers are in good shape right now in goal. Good to see Koskinen rebound from a bad season last year, even if I wasn’t expecting him to do as well as he’s doing right now.
But, even though the Oilers are rolling right now, it’s not all necessarily good news.
Puljujarvi’s results, for example, are largely because he’s sporting an 18.2% shooting percentage, almost double what his career average is. Expect him to cool off a bit as the season goes on, but enjoy the wave while we’ve got it.
Ditto for Zach Hyman, who currently has a 41.7% shooting percentage, something not even Connor Mcdavid or Leon Draisaitl can do. That will even out as the season goes on.
Likewise for Kassian, who’s at 75%. That will most definitely go down.
Foegele and Bouchard are both only about 0.5% higher than their career %, so expect them to more or less keep going at the pace they’re on now.
The fourth line has also been a bit of a disappointment. To start out it was Turris, Perlini, and Shore. None of them have produced any offence yet, although again it’s early in the season. Ditto for Colton Sceviour, who has taken Josh Archibald’s roster spot. Ryan Mcleod is back in Bakersfield now, but he did two games on that line and again produced no offence, and Tyler Benson had one game there as well and again produced nothing. All of those guys are either at even or -1, which is….meh.
They’re all playing around 10 minutes a game right now, and find themselves stapled to the bench for most of, if not all, of the third period in games so far. They’re making it too easy on Tippett to shorten his bench in key situations, so they’ve got to get going, and again early in the season so there’s lots of time to do that. However, Tippett may start calling guys up from the farm to jump start the line if they have to.
The Oilers need to be able to count on their fourth line in the playoffs to help them win a series, as the minutes will be harder and they’ll need these guys to produce offence now and again and give the rest of the team a brief – and very necessary – breather. Shortening the bench may not be a luxury we have in the playoffs depending on how long the games last.
The aforementioned Yamamoto has yet to produce a point, although if the Vegas game is any indication, he might be starting to get his mojo back.
Tyson Barrie is doing OK, he got two assists in the Arizona game to break his goose eggs, but you’d still expect him to be better for the role he’s playing, the season he had last year in leading all D in points in the entire league, and playing with Darnell Nurse.
He’s been exiled to the third pairing for stretches of games by Tippett. Expect that to become more frequent if he doesn’t watch it as Bouchard is pushing hard for the top four already early in the season. His cap hit is still reasonable enough if the Oilers want to trade him at some point they probably can.
The melodrama around Smith’s injury is probably unjustified, but worse comes to worse the Oilers may either have to give Skinner some starts or make a trade. That won’t happen right now, but later on in the season, who knows?
Bottom line
Some of these guys are on unsustainable heaters, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it while it lasts. It’s very early in the season but I could see the Oilers winning the division if things keep going as they are, with no worse than second unless they completely implode.