When it comes to the Edmonton Oilers, the reality is they've not been at their best recently. The prime examples of this being a 3-2 loss in Vancouver to a Canucks team which has been subpar at home this season, along with only just beating a poor Buffalo Sabres team at home by the same scoreline, in a game which they conceivably could (should) have lost.
At the same time, you have to accept that no team can perform to the best of their abilities all the time. Plus, there are no style points on offer in the NHL, so as long as you're winning in general it's all good, which is the case overall for an Oilers squad which has the best record in the league since late November.
As a result, as we've already written about, the Oilers find themselves in first place in the Pacific Division for the first time since December of 2021. Let's now find out how the team is doing in the latest round of power rankings by some of the major sports media outlets in North America.
High appreciation for the Oilers
Beginning as usual with The Athletic (subscription required), they have given the most love to the Oilers, by putting them at number two for a second consecutive week. While we could contend this is slightly too high, we at least respect the thinking, with both Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn in agreement with their individual rankings.
There is no theme for The Athletic this time around, with them instead saying that Connor McDavid should be getting more calls and then backing this assertion up with statistics. However, they then say it's hard to have much sympathy for the Oilers when their statement about McDavid's suspension gives off a vibe of “But mommmmmmmm, he started it”, which we don't actually agree with, but even if they did mean this, they are damn well right!
Next we turn to NHL.com's 'Super 16' rankings, which sees them move the Oilers up from fifth to fourth place, and that's not including the two most recent wins. In any event, we find this ranking to be more on the money.
Individually speaking among NHL.com's staff of 15 voters, the Oilers get the highest ranking from Dan Rosen and Brian Compton, with both gentlemen placing them second. Opposing this (in a manner of speaking) is Mike G. Morreale, who has them down in ninth place and thus won't be afforded the title of gentleman like his two colleague! (We are joking of course, instead just being surprised by Morreale's ranking but also being open-minded about it.)
This week's theme has NHL.com looking at omissions for each team from the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, with them mentioning Zach Hyman for the Oilers specifically. They do understand why he was left out because of how he was playing at the time with just three goals in 20 games, but -- as we wrote about towards the end of December -- Hyman has been in excellent form ever since with 14 goals in 24 games, looking more like the player who had a career-high 54 last season.
The smallest of drops for the Oilers
Moving on to Sportsnet, they've made the interesting decision to move the Oilers down from third place to fourth. In fairness to them though, this was done prior to the two most recent wins, and we suspect it was influenced by the aforementioned loss in Vancouver.
Ryan Dixon goes with an intriguing theme in looking at players who log big minutes for each team, with him mentioning McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the Oilers. Dixon notes they are two of only 10 forwards in the NHL averaging more than 21 minutes per game this season, which we could contend concerns us slightly, but also highlights just how important, spectacular and durable they are.
Finally we come to Bleacher Report, who keep the Oilers in fourth place for a second consecutive week. Lyle Fitzsimmons mentions about the team having to experience life without McDavid for a second consecutive stretch this season, but as far as we're concerned they proved they can 'survive' winning four of the six games overall without the game's best player.