The Edmonton Oilers (2-1-1) are set to face the New Jersey Devils (3-1-0) on the third stop along their Eastern Conference road trip.
The Devils have been high-flying to start the year with contributions up and down their lineup, unlike the Oilers. This has helped them start the year off well, heading into this afternoon matchup on a three-game win streak.
The Oilers look to play spoiler and end the Devils' streak, hopefully to kickstart one of their own. Although it is difficult with the Oilers being bit by the injury bug early on. As well, the lack of contributions from players outside of their stars.
Oilers depth scoring struggles
Over the summer, Oilers general manager Stan Bowman made big changes to the club's depth. Due to their big stars needing contract extensions they were forced to ship out veterans to clear up cap space. The team intended to mitigate these losses by adding in some rookies to their lineup.
This caused some anxiety and excitement throughout the fans and pundits but after the first few games into the season, it seems that the added depth has not been meshing as well as originally planned.
Outside of the top six scorers on the Oilers, nobody has more than a single point. This means that 12 of the team's 18 skaters are on pace to score 20.5 points over the course of the season.
Their lack of scoring is a big reason why they currently sit outside of a playoff spot as their defence has been good to start. The team has only allowed nine goals against, averaging just 2.25 GA to start the year. It helps of course, when one of your goalies already has posted a shutout but both of them are currently above .920 save percentage.
Oilers offence showing signs of life
Using metrics from moneypuck.com, multiple Oilers lines have been able to generate positive shot attempts for per 60 minutes (Corsi/60). Although this does not always translate directly to quality chances, there can sometimes be a lagging effect -- especially in small samples -- where players get a high volume of shots off but lack the quality scoring chances so they are not scoring.
Then, as time goes on it starts to even out and players score more along the lines of how you may expect. Looking at this, all four Oilers lines have been not only outshooting their opponents but also getting off a high volume of shots, adjusting for their ice time.
If these can start to translate into goals, it will likely improve the Oilers depth scoring over the coming weeks and months. This is what the team needs to start happening soon, before the season gets away from them. Hopefully, this can start on Saturday's matinee game against the Devils.
It will be a great opportunity for the club to turn things around and hopefully end their road trip on a positive note. As of right now, they are 1-1-0 having played the previous two matches against the New York Rangers and New York Islanders.