As we wrote on Saturday, the Edmonton Oilers have climbed to new heights this season in the NHL power rankings, with them seemingly in everyone's top five at the moment. This makes sense, given the team has gone 19-4-1 in their past 24 games. (This is being written prior to the game in Vancouver against the Canucks.)
Taking this into account, we viewed The Athletic's updated round of predictions for the 2024-25 season with interest. (Subscription required.) The top tier sports media outlet has presented these predictions since before the season started, making this the fourth edition of this ongoing series.
In respect of the Oilers specifically, some of the latest predictions may seem slightly surreal. Before we delve into them, for information and credit purposes, the detailed updated season predictions have been put together by Sean Gentille, Shayna Goldman, Jesse Granger, James Mirtle and the rest of The Athletic's NHL staff.
So about those Stanley Cup chances ...
We found the predictions for who will actually win the Stanley Cup of particular intrigue from an Oilers perspective. Consider that they began this season as favourites to take home the Holy Grail of hockey, with a resounding 46.4 percent. (More than double the Dallas Stars in second place, on 21.4 percent.)
However, due to the Oilers deciding to start a second consecutive campaign with indifferent results, they saw their odds fall all the way down to 9.7 percent in the second round of predictions. There was a slight jump in the third edition to 11.5 percent which, while it doesn't sound great, marked them as fifth favourites to win the Stanley Cup.
Now in the latest predictions roundup, you have a situation where the Oilers' odds have dipped slight to 11.1 percent, but countered by them now being the tied-third favourites to take home Lord Stanley's Cup. The Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars are dominating with 29.6 and 25.9 percent respectively, which is somewhat surprising just in terms of the Oilers being right there with them (give or take) in the standings.
A disappointment no more
Things are looking really good for the Oilers, when we look at is the biggest disappointment in the NHL this season. Consider that they had a league-worst 35.5 percent in the second predictions edition of 2024-25, where as now they are at 0 percent and quite rightly so, given the stunning collapse of the New York Rangers and the gowning struggles of the Vancouver Canucks.
When it comes to who will win the Hart Trophy, this is where the surreal side of things hit home, with Connor McDavid receiving a 0 percent chance, in stark contrast to being the preseason favourite at 82.1 percent. Nathan MacKinnon is now favourite at 37.0 percent, followed by a certain Leon Draisaitl at 29.6 percent, but McDavid being totally discounted is just asinine.
Still relating to Draisaitl, he rounds up our look at The Athletic's predictions from an Oilers perspective, with him now leading the race for the Rocket Richard Trophy at 92.6 percent. This in stark contrast to preseason, when he was at 3.6 percent and Auston Matthews was first at 82.1 percent, which just highlights how much things can and do change quickly throughout an NHL season.