After replacing Dave Tippett with Jay Woodcroft, the Edmonton Oilers won their first 5 games then lost 1. After their bad loss against a good Minnesota Wild team there is lots of questions on what is this Edmonton Oilers team?
The five wins in a row came against weaker teams. The best of the wins came against the Los Angeles Kings who currently are sitting at 16th in the NHL standings. They are also the only team they played that has a positive goal differential, at +6.
The rest of the teams are all teams that will likely be outside of the playoffs looking in when the season ends. It is a good sign that the Edmonton Oilers were able to beat them, but it is a bad sign that when they played a top 10 team they lost and didn’t look good.
The main question coming out of the Minnesota Wild game is, was this an off night for the Oilers, or is this the Oilers team? This coming week will be a good way to answer this question. They play the Tampa Bay Lightning Wednesday, Florida Panthers Saturday and the Carolina Hurricanes Sunday.
| Rk | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | PTS% | GF | GA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado Avalanche | 50 | 36 | 10 | 4 | 76 | .760 | 196 | 142 |
| 2 | Florida Panthers | 50 | 35 | 10 | 5 | 75 | .750 | 206 | 142 |
| 3 | Carolina Hurricanes | 50 | 35 | 11 | 4 | 74 | .740 | 175 | 121 |
| 4 | Tampa Bay Lightning | 49 | 32 | 11 | 6 | 70 | .714 | 167 | 135 |
| 15 | Edmonton Oilers | 50 | 28 | 19 | 3 | 59 | .590 | 165 | 161 |
Provided by Hockey-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/22/2022.
These are currently 3 of the top 4 teams in the NHL. If the Edmonton Oilers want to show us that they are a contending team, they will have to make these games close. I personally am okay if they lose to all three teams. They just need to play good.
On paper the Edmonton Oilers aren’t as good as either of these three teams, but the Oilers have lost lots of games where they should have won. This is what I want to see this week. High effort hockey from the Oilers.
Earlier this season the Edmonton Oilers played against the Panthers in Edmonton, they lost 6-0. The Oilers started the game playing good, but as soon as Florida scored the Edmonton Oilers fell apart and the game got out of hand.
This can’t happen in the next 3 games. This team can’t afford to go into a death spiral again. If they go through these 3 games and can’t keep any of them close, there will need to be another change. Holland has already fired a coach, so there isn’t many bullets left in the chamber to try and get this team going.
In my personal opinion this is the most important stretch of games this season. It will either show us that the Edmonton Oilers are contenders or if they are pretenders.