A couple of damning statistics highlight Oilers' poor start to 2024-25 season

As much as the Edmonton Oilers have been here before just last season, it doesn't make their poor start to the 2024-24 campaign any easier for fans to digest. Despite just missing out on the Stanley Cup, the team has somehow transpired to begin this season with an extremely underwhelming 2-4-0 record.

As a result of this uninspiring record through six games, the Oilers find themselves fourth-bottom in the entire NHL as of Monday morning. For some context, the Oilers were even worse at the same stage last season, with a 1-4-1 record on the way to a 2-9-1 start which was the poorest in team history through their opening 12 games.

Given that the roster contains the likes of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard, the Oilers are understandably expected to follow a similar path to last season in respect of getting (back) on track and being a genuine contender come playoff time. For now though, Oilers nation must deal with the anxiety and stress which comes with following a team not playing up to their talent level thus far.

When looking for reasons why the Oilers are struggling to put together wins at this stage in 2024-25, you can point to any number of reasons. For us, we're going to direct you towards a couple of damning statistics.

Efficiency or lack thereof

The first is the Oilers' penalty kill efficiency of just 55.0 percent, with the irony being they are instead being killed by their PK unit. This is in complete contrast to last season, particularly during the playoffs when they led all teams with a phenomenal 94.3 percent penalty kill efficiency.

The Oilers weren't quite as effective during the 2023-24 regular season, ranking just 15th in penalty kill efficiency. However, that efficiency rate of 79.5 percent was certainly better than the 55.0 percent so far in 2024-25.

Turning to the second damning statistic, we give due credit to Preston Hodgkinson of Daily Hive. It relates to the Oilers again sitting dead last in the NHL, this time in terms of team finishing.

Lack of a killer instinct

As put together by hockey analytics expert JFresh, the Oilers have the worst goals-scored-above-expected in the NHL, at -7.6. To help put this into even more context, consider that the next-worst team is the Nashville Predators at -6.0; that would be the only team yet to record even one point in 2024-25.

In one respect, there is a positive in that the Oilers are creating plenty of quality opportunities. On the flip side though, the statistic shows they are also regularly failing to convert said quality opportunities.

As a result of these two damning statistics, it should come as no surprise that the Oilers have the third-worst goal difference in the NHL at the time of writing, at -12. This is clearly a team still trying to find their footing.

Overall, common sense tells us that the Oilers will eventually tighten up their penalty killing, at least to a certain extent. Similarly, they should soon start converting more of their goal opportunities.

The talent on this Oilers roster demands as much - they owe it to themselves, but especially to their fans. Let's see what happens in their next game, at home to the Carolina Panthers on Tuesday evening.

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