Game Day 8: Oilers stumbling start shadows that of 2023-24

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Game Day 8: Pittsburgh at Edmonton

One season ago, the Edmonton Oilers floundered out of the gate, recording just 5 points through 12 games thanks to a putrid 2-9-1 W-L-O record. The writing was already on the wall for coach Jay Woodcroft, even as he got one last game at the helm — a win at Seattle to finish a road trip — before getting “relieved of his duties” the following day, leading to the hiring of Kris Knoblauch.

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A couple of days before the coaching change and just before that send-off win, I wrote a post provocatively headlined What tells us more about Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft: 120 good games or 12 bad ones?

While the diligent reader is invited to click the link, for today’s purposes let’s just bring forward the guts of the statistical argument it contained:

NHL rankings over the periods in question highlight top-10 positions in green, top-5 in darker green, and bottom-5 in red. There was absolutely nothing in between those extremes.

Showing that in the first 90% of Woodcroft’s time behind the bench, the Oilers were an elite team in terms of process, and similarly elite in terms conversion rates including the most important one, points percentage. Whereas in the last 10% of his time here, the process numbers continued to shine, but those conversion rates utterly collapsed.

Or as I put it at the time: “In particular, PDO has cratered from 2nd to 32nd. Hey lookit! Points percentage has similarly crashed from 2nd to 31st.”

At the time I thought the statistical record might be sufficient to warrant continuing patience in the coach who to this day sports the best points percentage in franchise history, but the die was already cast.

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Enter Kris Knoblauch, under whose leadership the squad’s results right across the board resumed their prior excellence for the remainder of the 2023-24 season. Here’s a similar chart showing his results to date, including the last 69 games of the campaign contrasted to the first 7 of the current one. Again, a 10:1 ratio. The parallels are striking:

Knoblauch’s record in the final five months was exemplary, top quarter of the league in every category including the best points percentage in the entire league during the time he was in it. The coaching chance stopped the bleeding, as the Oilers resumed the excellence they had displayed throughout most of Woody’s tenure. But once again, a puzzling dichotomy to start the following season, with strong process numbers (though expected goals don’t quite jive with the others), but absolutely terrible conversion rates bleeding out into both goal and win shares.

First the good news: the club has matched last season’s not-so-blazing start with 5 games to spare! They’ve got the same 5 points after 7 games that they had after 12 a season ago. #OilersPositives

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The bad: for a second straight season they’ve dug a hole in the standings, once again ranking seventh in the Pacific ahead of just the struggling Sharks of San Jose.

The underlying reasons for the slow start are not necessarily the same, but there are certainly things in common. A similar breakdown of the statistical record again shows that flow of play is not the issue. But as was the case a year ago, the club is simply not converting chances into goals, while opponents are finishing their own opportunities at an unacceptably high rate.

Last year the answer was change the coach, keep the nose to the grindstone in terms of process, clean up special teams play, and pay finer attention to detail in both kill zones. Ideally, the 2024-25 version of the solution can bypass the first of those steps but get cracking on the latter three. Ideally, starting tonight as the squad hosts Pittsburgh Penguins on Oilers Hall of Fame Night.

Tonight’s line-up

Based on Thursday lines at practice. Vasily Podkolzin gets the push into the top six, joining Leon Draisaitl and Viktor Arvisson on the second line. Despite being one of the most dangerous Oilers in Tuesday’s overtime loss to Carolina, Jeff Skinner heads the other way, where he’ll join the struggling Adam Henrique and Connor Brown on line three.

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On the back end, the 4-6-7 rotation takes another spin, with Troy Stecher getting bumped back up to the second pairing with Darnell Nurse, Ty Emberson drawing back into the line-up on the third pairing with Brett Kulak, and Travis Dermott getting the lone seat in the press box. Once again paired with a right-shot partner, Nurse will return to his natural side after a one-game experiment.

Stu Skinner is expected to get his third straight start in net, taking advantage of a schedule that twice in a row has seen two days off between games. With back-to-backs scheduled at Detroit and Columbus on Sunday-Monday, Calvin Pickard will get his turn soon enough.

Keep an eye on the Edmonton powerplay. The Oilers have been experimenting with different alignments in recent days, though that may prove to be more of a shot across the bow of the first unit rather than an actual change in deployment.

Tonight’s opponent

Lest you think the Oilers feature long-term continuity on the powerplay, where the middle trio of McDavid-Draisaitl-RNH has been on the same unit since PP coach Glen Gulutzan took charge back in 2018, consider the case of the Pittsburgh Penguins whose core trio of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have been together for eighteen years. The three vets, all of them at least 37 years old, continue to man a star-studded first unit that includes Erik Karlsson, 34, and Bryan Rust, 32.

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Meanwhile, former Oiler Jesse Puljujarvi (7 GP, 1-4-5) will finally play his first game against his former club.

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With former Edmonton Oil King Tristan Jarry back in Pittsburgh “working on his game”, 22-year-old rookie Joel Blomqvist is expected to get the start in net.

The Penguins bring a 3-4-1 record and a -8 goal differential to tonight’s game.

Good news on the medical front

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Evander Kane was initially reported to be out for 5-6 months, so “early 2025” sounds like that timeline has been accelerated.

The Oilers have certainly missed Kane’s trademark physicality. The club currently ranks dead last in the league in hits and hits/60, this after finishing in the middle of the pack (16th) last season. Kane was by far the team leader in this department with 250 hits, ranking 6th in the entire NHL. Compare and contrast to the current season, where Vasily Podkolzin (19) is the only Oiler among 212 NHLers currently in double digits.

Oilers Hall of Fame Night

Tonight the hockey club will honour two of its past heroes in its third annual Hall of Fame induction which this year will take place in a post-game ceremony.

Randy Gregg was and remains a University of Alberta Golden Bears legend, where he won two national championships representing his home city in the late 1970’s. After serving as captain of Canada’s Olympic team in Lake Placid followed by a two-year stint in the Asian League, he returned to the city late in the 1981-82 season and would go on to win five Stanley Cups over the following eight seasons. His induction completes the group fondly known as the Magnificent Seven who played on all five Cup champions. His contributions to this city extend well beyond hockey to sports medicine, FunTeam Alberta and baseball’s Riverhawks.

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Craig MacTavish was a teammate of Gregg for the last three of those Cup wins, serving a critical role as the most accomplished 3C in club history. A strong checker with superb penalty-killing chops and a knack for scoring in the clutch, MacTavish brought a heaping helping of character and class that served him well through a life in hockey, much of it spent here in Edmonton. He ultimately served as team captain before later returning as coach (8 seasons) and general manager (2 seasons) among assorted other roles.

The accomplishments of both Oilers legends were reviewed in more detail when their induction was first announced back on Aug 01.

Hearty congratulations to both men on this richly-deserved honour.

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