Offence
Now, the time has come to look at the offence. The load, as expected, is mostly carried by Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid. Draisaitl trails Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche by seven points for the NHL lead in scoring following Monday's slate of NHL action.
McDavid isn’t too far behind in sixth place with 54 points. Granted, he missed a handful of games earlier this season due to injury.
Unfortunately, no other Oiler fits into the top 50 scorers in the league. So, it’s a pretty top-heavy lineup in Edmonton. This situation does not bode well, as the Oilers need to get depth scoring. While its been there at times, players like Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins need to play a more prominent role.
The Jeff Skinner fiasco and the relatively low output from other players like Viktor Arvidsson have put the Oilers in a bit of a bind scoring-wise.
Despite the apparent lack of scoring, the Edmonton Oilers rank eighth in the league with 3.28 goals per game. On the power play, the club’s 23.5 percent is good for 11th. That’s not bad, but given the amount of elite talent on the Oilers, the power play should rank higher.
But I will say this: The Edmonton Oilers can catch fire at any time. When they do, that power play percentage can skyrocket. So, don’t be surprised if the Oilers go on a tear, bringing their power play ranking into the top five in short order.
On the whole, the Oilers’ offence gets another B+ as it’s good, but it could be better. Fans would like to see more dominant performances as opposed to scraping by in low-scoring games. Sure, playoff hockey is low-scoring, grinding games by definition.
But during the regular season, the Oilers must blow out teams that need to be blown out, and grind away against the tougher teams in the league. If the Oilers can get more reliable and consistent depth scoring, the team’s numbers should drastically improve, providing more confidence in the team as the season gradually winds down.