2 Drastic Changes The Oilers Need To If Losing Continues
The Edmonton Oilers are off to a less-than-ideal start to the season. After last night’s loss, the Edmonton Oilers are sitting with a record of 1-3-1 through 5 games. This team came into the season as Stanley Cup favourites by many experts, so this start is surprising for most.
Now I still don’t quite think it is time to pull any emergency door handles it anything like that, but we are 2-3 more losses from doing that. The question is what can the Edmonton Oilers do to try and change the way their season is going?
So far this season Woodcroft has tried switching up the lines and lineup. After the first couple of losses, he put Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid on the same line in hopes of bringing the team a win. It worked the first game he did it, but after that, they haven’t been able to win again.
What else is there for Jay or the Edmonton Oilers to do aside from that? In my opinion, there are 2 large-scale drastic changes that they can do that will hopefully wake up this team.
The Edmonton Oilers Make A Trade
A trade is always a move that the GM can so to try and spark his team. Most teams are really close with their teammates and do not want them to be traded. I imagine it would feel a lot like one of your friends in school moving away. You personally have no control over it, but it sucks to see your friend leave.
A trade could be just what the Edmonton Oilers need to have an early season reboot. I am not talking about trading away one of the top forwards or top defenseman, but a middle-of-the-line player.
This type of trade won’t make your team better on paper, it usually is just a trade to make a trade scenario. If you trade away a middle 6 forward you would get a middle 6 forward back.
Now if Ken Holland really wanted to mix things up he would look for a larger scale trade. The problem with that is those trades are really hard to make this early in the season. This is cause every team can still make the playoffs. Unless a team is struggling like the Oilers I don’t see that scale of trade happening.
Fire Head Coach Jay Woodcroft
I also think the Edmonton Oilers are at least 5 games away from this being an option, but the way this season has started it needs to start to be on people’s minds. Just like in the trade option I already mentioned this move is more about waking up than players than anything else.
Since the Edmonton Oilers moved Woodcroft to the head coaching role he has had an excellent record. I don’t think firing the coach is the best move, but when it comes to trying to wake up your roster it is one of the best things you could do.
| Regular Season | Playoffs | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Age | Tm | Lg | GP | W | L | T | OL | PTS | PTS% | Finish | G | W | L | T | W-L% | Notes |
| 2021-22 | 45 | EDM | NHL | 38 | 26 | 9 | 3 | 55 | .724 | 2nd | 16 | 8 | 8 | .500 | |||
| 2022-23 | 46 | EDM | NHL | 82 | 50 | 23 | 9 | 109 | .665 | 2nd | 12 | 6 | 6 | .500 | |||
| 2023-24 | 47 | EDM | NHL | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | .300 | 5th | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| Career | NHL | 125 | 77 | 35 | 13 | 167 | .668 | 28 | 14 | 14 | .500 |
Provided by Hockey-Reference.com
Generated 10/22/2023.
I think the main issue with this team right now is their competitive level. You could blame some of this on the coach as it is technically his job to get his team playing the way they should be. My main problem with the competitive level is it eventually comes down to the player.
It isn’t like Woodcroft is walking into the Edmonton Oilers dressing room saying things like “Okay guys, we only need to try 75% today this team is pretty weak.” He is going into that room telling them to play hard.
This is why I think this is more of an individual player problem than it is a coaching or roster issue. This is why the two drastic moves I noted the main point of them is to wake up the players, not to actually improve or change anything on paper.
This team has the skill to win a game against any team in the NHL, they just are currently lacking the try level required to win the games. I thought they would play a better game against the higher-ranked Winnipeg Jets, but I was wrong.
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Something needs to be done sooner rather than later if this team continues to lose games. It is a long season, but they are almost a 10th done the season already and they only have 1 win to show for their 5 games played.
Next. The recipe for Oilers success is playing McDavid and Draisaitl together. dark