The Edmonton Oilers squandered multiple leads on their way to a shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Monday evening. Two nights prior, they were trailing, but in the game, against the Toronto Maple Leafs before a flurry of goals against in the third period. While neither loss negates all the good work the team has done in its first month of the 2026-27 season, it does seem apparent that the defensive structure that had been on display in the first half of the month had weakened.
We don't have to look terribly far to find the reason. Mattias Ekholm left the third period of the game against the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes and ever since the team's best defensive defenseman went down, things haven't quite looked right. Ekholm isn't going to get the Norris considerations that Evan Bouchard (better damn) get, but the fact is that the Oilers' elite scoring d-man couldn't do what he does without his stalwart defensive partner. Ekholm is just as key a piece of the Oilers and if his health is uncertain, then so are the team's chances at a championship of their own.
Calming veteran presence
The Oilers are filled with veterans at this point in the Connor McDavid era. Up front, if any single player goes down, including the captain or a scorer like Leon Draisaitl, the rest of the team has the experience and gravitas to pull together and continue to find success. We saw them do just that when Draisaitl went down late in the previous season. The team's playoff chances were very much in doubt, and without Draisaitl they still put together enough of a win streak that they easily made the postseason.
The defense does not have that same luxury. There are a lot of new faces. Guys like Ryan Shea,
Shakir Mukhamadullin, or even Connor Murphy haven't necessarily been in the organization long enough that people know to follow their lead. Jake Walman is struggling to take the next step in his career, paid like a top four defenseman but not always producing like one. Darnell Nurse surely left a void behind as well. So Ekholm's absence is felt differently than the earlier injuries to guys like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Zach Hyman were.
Ekholm's 21 minutes a night are generally positive play time for the team, either shutting down the best opposing players, or contributing his decent amount of point production. The good news is that he's expected back relatively soon, because it's no coincidence that the team's first two game losing streak happened immediately following his injury.
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