The Edmonton Oilers are sitting comfortably in fourth place in the National Hockey League standings race. They've been a notoriously slow starting bunch in almost every other year of the Connor McDavid/Leon Draisaitl era, so the early success is surely good for the heart health of the fanbase. And if you look at things slightly differently, the Oilers only have eight games played this season. The three teams above them in the standings have all played more games, but Edmonton's total points captured percentage of 0.813 is the very best. With a successful homestand, the team could easily sit atop the standings again as well.
The interesting thing is, when looking at the NHL's Edge advanced statistics, there aren't a lot of Oilers names in the top ten in most categories. McDavid is amongst the NHL's fastest skaters, no surprise there, but it's interesting to see that Kasperi Kapanen and Isaac Howard are also on the list. Other than skating speed, the Oilers are oddly absent. They don't have the hardest shot, in spite of Evan Bouchard's capabilities and early results. They don't have the highest accuracy either, even though a guy like Vasily Podkolzin is right with the league leaders in terms of goals scored.
The Oilers don't even have a player in the top ten of high danger shots on goal, regardless of their scoring buckets of goals in the eight games they've played. So without any sort of elite statistics, why is the team doing so well? There are two answers: Consistency and efficiency.
Consistency
There seems to be far more system buy in in 2026-27 than in recent years. Bruce Curlock put together an excellent article on the defensive system the Oilers are utilizing, and it's interesting to see that it's not that different in terms of scheme from past years. The difference is in the execution. The players are sticking to their roles, makeing fewer gambles and therefore fewer costly mistakes, and the net result has been standings points in the bank.
Since the end of year interviews, McDavid and Draisaitl have been clear that they want to be held to a higher standard, and new head coach Mike Babcock, for all his warts, seems to be doing just that. With those two players paying more attention and care to the words and intentions of the coach, it's only natural that the rest of the lineup will as well.
Efficiency
McDavid doesn't have the most high danger chances, in spite of all his skill and speed. But he's clearly making those chances count, either by scoring himself, or by drawing defenders out of position and making great passes. His 23 points in only eight games played is a huge outlier. Jack Eichel is second and five points behind, plus he's played two additional games.
Devon Levi has been similarly efficient. He's not a league leader in goals against, high danger saves, or even total shots. But he has won most of his starts. Nobody is going to frame the 9-7 box score from his first start of the season, but it wasn't 10-9 for the Vancouver Canucks. And in lower scoring games, Levi has risen to the level needed, as has his counterpart and backup, Tristan Jarry, even if Oiler fans do get a bit nervous when the Oilers backup gets the start.
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