3 Takeaways as Oilers suffer disastrous 6-3 loss in Carolina

3) Oilers can forget about the playoffs

The Oilers have endured several slow starts to a season before, during the McDavid era. However, it’s tough to think of a worse start than this one, especially when considering all of the preseason hype.

As already mentioned, the Oilers are not even a quarter of the way through their regular season games. However, as of Thursday morning, they already sit 10 points out of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference.

Never mind the Pacific Division already being out of reach for the Oilers. At this point, it’s difficult to imagine them even making the playoffs; heck, even making a genuine and sustained challenge for the playoffs.

If you look back through history, there is at least some hope that the Oilers can still recover. Think back to the 2018-19 season, when the St. Louis Blues were in last place in the league in January, but came all the way back to miraculously win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

Not quite as dramatic, but if the Oilers can somehow come back and sneak into the playoffs, again, there is hope. The Los Angeles Kings qualified as they eighth seed back in 2011-12, and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

If you go back even further to the 2005-06 season, the Oilers themselves made it all the way to the Stanley Cup final as a number eight seed. Yes they ultimately lost in seven games to the Hurricanes, but it was still an impressive feat.

The major issue with this train of thought though, is that the aforementioned achievements are the exceptions rather than the rules. It’s going to take a herculean effort by the Oilers to get into the playoffs from this point, even if they are only 18 games in.

We won’t go as far as saying it’s impossible, whether it be because this is still effectively the same roster which won 50 games last season, or just purely mathematically speaking with still 64 games remaining. However, in our humble opinion, the Oilers are not going to the playoffs this season. (Not that there would be any issue with being proven wrong about this.)

Quote of the day

Kane was asked how the team as a collective moves on from an effort such as the one in Carolina. He said:

"“…….(pause)………*sigh*……………Good question, good question.”"

Winless so far in three road games, the Oilers will complete their trip out East on Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. While a win wouldn’t compensate for their disastrous road trip, they desperately need to get something from the Capitals game; hell, even an overtime or shootout loss would be a positive at this point.