Stock Report: Oilers continue to struggle as season resumes

After a brief break over the holidays, hockey has returned at full force and the season has continued as planned. However, for the Edmonton Oilers, a longer break may have been needed.

Unfortunately for the Oilers, they continue to spin out of control. After starting the season 16-5-0, Edmonton’s record now sits at a mediocre 18-13-2.

Everyone knew that the fast start was a mirage, but this steep drop off is something that continues to amaze, as this team keeps finding ways to lose hockey games.

There has been a lot of criticism of this team in all facets, so let’s dive into it in this edition of stock report.

Trending down: Starting on time

I’m not sure how many times I’ve said it, but the Oilers cannot get saves early in games. They continuously give up the first goal of the game seemingly every night.

The Oilers have played 33 games so far this season, they have scored the first goal of the game just 10 times. What’s even more staggering is the fact that six of those games in which they scored first were in the teams first nine games.

That means that Edmonton has scored the first goal of the game just four times in their last 24 contests. That’s only 16 per cent of the time.

Of the 23 instances where the Oilers have given up the first goal of the game, 15 of them came within the opening 10 minutes. That means Edmonton is playing from behind almost immediately in almost half of the games they’ve played so far.

It’s quite puzzling to ponder why the Oilers are so bad at the start of games, but it’s quite easy to point to their poor starts as a source for their woes as of late.

Opposing teams are getting leads early, allowing them to focus more on defending Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. It’s a domino effect that leads to the Oilers generating less offence, causing them to have to take more chances, resulting in more chances against, resulting in more losses.

In other words, the Oilers need to be better at starting on time.

Trending down: Goaltending

Part of the Oilers problems when it comes to scoring the first goal boil down to goaltending. After all, it’s easy to give up the first goal when your goalies also don’t start on time.

Koskinen in particular has been subpar, to say the least.

Koskinen has had above a .900 save percentage in just one of his last six games. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, that’s just awful.

Mike Smith recently returned after a lengthy absence from the lineup, but he hasn’t been much better.

This outcome was fairly predictable to most fans and analysts out there, but the Oilers need a goaltender … desperately.

Trending down: Depth Scoring

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, beyond McDavid and Draisaitl, the Oilers can’t generate a lot of offence.

It’s quite alarming that the Oilers have been plagued by the same issues for so long. Edmonton hasn’t given McDavid a quality supporting cast … ever.

That’s easily the biggest sin they’ve committed, leaving their franchise superstar to fend for himself. Their incompetence is unfortunate for not just Oilers fans, but hockey fans in general. Because as a hockey community we don’t get to experience McDavid’s magic in the playoffs because Edmonton isn’t a good enough team to go on a cup run.

To summarize everything, the Edmonton Oilers have yet to get out of their tailspin. They are still a team that over-relies in special teams and high-end talent to bail them out of poor five-on-five play.

Edmonton is now sliding further down the standings, and the Kings, Sharks, Jets, and Canucks are all within three points of the Oilers for the second wildcard spot in the Western Conference.

The Oilers have very rapidly gone from a favourite to win the division, to a team that looks like a playoff-hopeful at best. Edmonton needs to figure out how to turn this around, for the sake of their season, and the team’s future.