The best way to describe the early season for the Edmonton Oilers is that it is like a rollercoaster.
There have been ups and downs but the club has won once in their last four games but has a 1-1-2 record throughout that span. Meaning, they have captured four of a possible eight points, which is probably what they deserve in these outings.
Over the entire year, the team is 5-4-3 and currently sitting just outside of a wild card spot in the Western Conference. Again, given their overall performance to start, this is probably a fair placement for the team at this rate.
There have been struggles throughout the lineup with the majority of the blame resting on their inability to score goals at 5-on-5. This is not helped by their struggles between the pipes and in gaining production from their depth. Slowly, the latter is coming along.
In this game, veteran forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will play in his 972nd National Hockey League game. This puts him second all-time games played in Oilers franchise history, ahead of Ryan Smyth. As a team, the Oilers face the Chicago Blackhawks led by young stars such as; Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, and Sam Rinzel. It is the second-half of the classic Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.
Oilers offence trending upwards
The recent efforts from the Oilers offence provides quite a lot of optimism as the team is seeing more contributions from it's young players like Ike Howard and Matt Savoie. Savoie even scored his first career NHL goal last game. This is a step forward from the rookies' struggles earlier in the year.
This shows in their analytics too as the team's corsi and expected goals for numbers are trending up towards the middle of the league over their past five games (according to evolving-hockey.com).
The defensive statistics, like corsi and expected goals against are also hovering around the top 10 to mid-range placement, like they have been all season. This is a good sign that the Oilers defence is as strong as hoped.
The only numbers that are not showing signs of improvement are the goals against, placing them near the last of the league. This indicates that the Oilers netminders have been underperforming based on the defensive result.
Skinner hopes to bounce back
Much was made entering training camp of Oilers starting goalie Stuart Skinner and his improved physique and in regards to his relationship with new goaltending coach Peter Aubry. Although there have been some good efforts in the early part of the year, his overall numbers do not produce a ton of confidence.
Through his eight starts this year, Skinner has a 3-3-2 record with a 2.59 goals against average and a .896 save percentage. It should be noted that he has one shutout, something that certainly drives these numbers up.
There is hope he will regain form at least to some extent, given his history but right now things do not project out well. He will need to drastically improve his numbers in order to gain confidence from the fandom that he can lead the charge in the crease towards what is hopefully another Stanley Cup Finals appearance down the stretch.