5 questions Oilers need to answer during 6-game homestand

As the Edmonton Oilers prepare for their longest homestand of the 2023-24 season, we consider five questions they must answer over the next six games.

The Oilers are playing well of late and are on a season-high four-game winning streak. However, it’s telling about how horrendous their start to the 2023-24 campaign was, that they still have a losing record through 22 games.

As of Tuesday morning, the Oilers sit eight points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference. While there’s still plenty of time to return to contention for the playoffs and beyond, the task ahead of them remains unenviable.

This is why the six-game home schedule set to begin on Wednesday night is so crucial, even at just the quarter-way point of this season. The Oilers really do need to take advantage of what will be their longest homestand of 2023-24.

In this respect, there’s a lot to consider during the coming days in Edmonton. Here are five questions in particular, which Oilers fans will want the answer to:

1) Will Campbell get his recall?

There is growing speculation that Jack Campbell will soon return to the Oilers. We’ve written previously, that we believe it’s too soon for his recall to Edmonton.

Sent to Bakersfield after clearing waivers to work on his game (and confidence), Campbell’s overall play with the Condors has been erratic. At the same time however, he has improved of late.

Consider that the 31-year-old lost his first three games with the Condors, as he allowed 13 combined goals. Since then, while not exactly being outstanding, he has won three of his last four starts.

Overall, Campbell has a 3-4-0 record in seven games, producing a 3.28 Goals Against Average and .893 save percentage in the process. Regardless, as per Sportsnet‘s Elliotte Friedman on his latest 32 Thoughts podcast, the Oilers are going to give him one more chance to prove himself.

Now you could ask why such a rush to bring the 2010 11th overall draft pick back so soon? However, despite our stance regarding what the Oilers should do with him, we do appreciate why there is such an apparent sense of urgency.

As much as Stuart Skinner has been carrying the load of late, it’s not realistic (or fair) to expect him to do this over the long-term. Most teams are better when they have someone who can split the workload, or at least be a reliable backup.

Of course, ‘reliable’ is the key word when it comes to Campbell. While no one doubts his talent, he’s just never been consistent enough, with him performing even worse since he arrived in Edmonton on his five-year, $25 million deal.

And really, it’s this contract which is factoring into the reasoning behind why the Oilers want to give the 2022 All-Star another opportunity to justify keeping him around. As such, while not a 100 percent certainty, he’s likely to be recalled and see some playing time during this six-game homestand.

2) Can Skinner continue his recent form?

Skinner has turned his season around of late, after a poor start to the 2023-24 campaign. Consider that he began this season with a 1-5-1 record in his first eight games (including seven starts), and at one point had the third-worst save percentage among all NHL goaltenders.

Since then however, as the team has got on track, so has the Edmonton native. In this respect he’s won seven of his nine previous starts, not that it’s all been smooth sailing.

Along these lines, Skinner had a spell during the nine-game run, where he reverted to his early season form. The three-game spell included his two aforementioned losses, as he allowed 12 goals and had a .829 save percentage.

This is important to note, only because it’s proof that the 25-year-old cannot — not that you would expect him to — rest on his laurels. Fair or not, questions will remain about his ability to be more stable and consistent between the pipes.

At least there is hope for Oilers fans that this is the direction Skinner is headed in. In his previous four starts — all wins — he has a 1.73 Goals Against Average and a .931 save percentage.

Everyone knows what the 2017 third round draft pick is capable of, as evidenced by finishing runner up for the Calder Trophy last season. Now, it’s a case of continuing his recent form, and proving he can be a long-term solution in goal.

Skinner spoke to the media on Monday following practice and was asked how much he had contributed to the recent defensive improvement. In typical fashion though he preferred to credit the team as a whole, as he said:

“I think it’s everybody. Huge credit to the guys in front of me. I think I’ve said this probably a hundred times, but the (penalty kill) has just been really, really good, which is a huge, huge help for just being able to win games in general. So huge props to the forwards and the (defencemen) really being committed on our penalty kill, on our power play and just the game overall. It’s been very good.”

3) Will McDavid continue to surge up scoring charts?

It’s been a season like no other for Connor McDavid, in respect of the adversity and negativity he’s faced. He has dealt with an injury absence, poor results leading to unjustified criticism from so-called fans, and even controversy surrounding his weekend induction into the Canada Walk of Fame.

In reality, at the core of all this was McDavid’s individual productivity, or lack thereof. Such are the expectations, that 16 points in his first 16 games of this campaign was considered not good enough.

Objectively you can appreciate this to a certain extent, when we’re talking about the best player in the game today. The five-time Art Ross Trophy winner was also coming off a season when he scored the most points by a player since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96.

Regardless, the recent game in Washington, D.C., marked a turnaround in McDavid’s fortunes. He recorded four assists in the 5-0 shutout of the Capitals, for his first game this season with more than two points.

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The six-time All-Star then followed this up with another four assists — as well as a goal of his own — in the dominating 8-2 win versus the not-so mighty Ducks. His performance was also noteworthy for seeing him move up to third place in Oilers history, with 39 three-plus assist games.

McDavid was subsequently named NHL First Star for the week ending Nov. 26, but there was still more to come. He added another three points in the 5-4 shootout win against the Golden Knights, while also notching the Oilers’ first goal in the shootout.

The performance versus last season’s Stanley Cup champions also marked the 26-year-old achieving something not seen in 28 years. As per Ryan Gaydos of Fox Sports, he became the first player since Lemieux in his aforementioned 1995-96 season, to have three-point periods in three consecutive games.

By comparison McDavid ‘only’ had one assist in the 3-1 win against the Jets, but overall he has shot 100 places up the scoring charts and now sits at tied 12th overall on 29 points. If he continues his recent surge in this homestand, he has a good chance to be in the top five for points at the conclusion of the sixth game.

5) Will the Oilers win the overall home stand?

While the Oilers were actually more successful on the road last season, their 23-12-6 record at home wasn’t exactly shabby. Regardless, Rogers Place has not exactly proved to be a fortress so far in 2023-24.

In fact, consider that the Oilers went 1-4-1 in their first six games at home this season. And that one win actually come at Commonwealth Stadium, in the Heritage Classic against the Calgary Flames.

Fortunately for everyone concerned, the Oilers have been much better at home since. They’ve won their past four at Rogers Place, with an overall 21-7 goal advantage.

Now though, we get to see if the Oilers can take advantage of a long homestand, not that it will be easy. We’ve already mentioned their struggles versus the Wild, while their first game of the homestand will be against a Hurricanes team which doubled them up 6-3 just two weeks ago in Carolina.

The Oilers will also finish the homestand with two games against the Lightning and Panthers. During the recent road trip out east, it included a 6-4 loss in Tampa and 5-3 defeat in Sunrise.

This all leads to the question of if the Oilers can win this overall homestand. In reality, nothing less than four wins out of six will do, as they look to prove they are indeed back after their horrendous start to the 2023-24 season.

It helps that the middle two games will come against the New Jersey Devils and Chicago Blackhawks. As much as the Oilers themselves are currently in a similar position, these are two teams near the bottom of their respective conferences.

For what it’s worth, four of the six teams the Oilers will face during this homestand have losing records on the road so far in 2023-24. However, we appreciate that all the statistics in the world don’t mean a thing on paper – it’s about producing the results on the ice.

Overall, these are interesting times for the Oilers and this six-game homestand will tell us a lot about where this team is at. As much as it won’t make or break them per se, we’ll have a good indication by the end, of how realistic their playoff chances are.