After performing quite well in their toughest week of the young 2026-27 season, the Edmonton Oilers face a step down in competition in their next few matchups. The lowly Calgary Flames, who have scraped their way out of the very bottom of the league standings, but still have a long way to go toward respectability, arrive at Rogers Place on Wednesday night. That game will be followed by two away dates against New York franchises. The New York Islanders will host the Oilers on Halloween night, followed by a date with the New York Rangers the next day.
Calgary can't be overlooked, as the Toronto Maple Leafs discovered when they flew south after trouncing the Oilers, but in terms of straight skill, Edmonton's roster has significantly more, even factoring in injuries. In the Islanders, the Oilers will face a club with a young superstar (who should have been on the Olympic squad) but also a club that sits outside of a wildcard slot currently. The second night of the back-to-back will be against a Rangers team on a bit of a slide (0-2 in their last two), and lacking its starting goaltender.
Reversing negative trends
The Oilers have showed a lot of resilience this year, weathering a bunch of unfortunate injuries and stil yet to surrender two regulation losses in a row. That resiliency needs to continue, because the current injuries definitely feel like more of an overall setback. The Oilers need to take two points away from the Flames and then maximize their rest ahead of the weekend doubleheader.
Shot differential has been something the Oilers haven't kept on the positive side, generally tying or being outshot by their opponents. They're repressing well enough, sitting just outside the top ten in the league, but allowing more shots than you take feels like a recipe for bad bounce luck. Elite players like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can tend to hold the puck longer, knowing they're capable of high danger chances, but the rest of the lineup should be peppering the opposing netminder.
If that's not happening, it either means the checking lines are being hemmed into their own zone, or they're trying to follow their stars' example, looking for pretty goals. But volume has its own way of paying off, and that's what the low minute players should be aiming for. Two wins out of three is a reasonable expectation for the week, with the second game of a back-to-back always a challenging outing, and we may see recent Bakersfield call up Matt Tomkins for one of those starts.
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