Have the Edmonton Oilers backed themselves into a corner?

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Remember when the Edmonton Oilers tried to save a buck over the off-season by letting go of a bunch of players on their defence?

It turns out they may have just bitten themselves on the backside when it comes to their new-look back end.

The team is tied for 24th in the category of goals-against — about the biggest defensive statistic there can be for a team. The one that matters most in the standings, anyway.

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Sure, you could argue goaltending has a lot to do with that too. But when they’re not helping each other out back there, then none of what the team’s trying to do out on the ice on a nightly basis really seems to be working.

And that perfectly summarizes the Oilers over the first couple weeks of the season, sitting 2-4-1 and giving up twice as many goals as they’re scoring.

How it started

The Oilers have never been known for their defence, all due respect to the Paul Coffeys, Kevin Lowes, Randy Greggs and Charlie Huddys throughout team lore.

This club has always been more offence-minded, with the aim of having superstars who could simply score more goals than the opposition — with perhaps the exception of the short-lived Chris Pronger days. (You remember, not the last time the team went to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but the time before that?)

Well, it took Coffey, himself, returning to Edmonton and joining the coaching ranks to finally get the defence on track. While the personnel remained unchanged, and after some growing pains early on last year, the Oilers all of a sudden found themselves not having to score four, five or six goals a game in order to win.

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The offence was still putting up points, and Connor McDavid was doing all the Connor McDavid things, but there were also nights when the Oilers were winning low-scoring affairs. All of a sudden, the wins started coming in bunches.

It ended up leading them to challenge an NHL-record 17-straight wins, as they climbed back into the playoff picture following a tremendously slow start that ended in the firing of head coach Jay Woodcroft in mid-November.

They turned things around from there, of course, and a big part of that was due to consistent performances from a healthy defensive corps.

Off-season shakeup

After coming oh-so-close to realizing their ultimate goal of hoisting a Stanley Cup, the Oilers defence looked much different heading into free agency than coming out of it.

Sure, they still had the top pairing of plus-minus machine Mattias Ekholm and the offensively keen Evan Bouchard. But the other defensive pairings would change.

Brett Kulak found himself in need of a new partner after Vincent Desharnais left in free agency to join the Vancouver Canucks, while Philip Broberg — a now-proven prospect after joining the Oilers on their long playoff romp — didn’t get matched by the Oilers on an offer sheet from the St. Louis Blues.

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The 23-year-old, who was drafted eighth overall by Edmonton in 2019, came into Thursday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs tied for second in team scoring with six points (one goal, five assists) in seven games.

So, yeah. It’s a bit of a hole to fill.

The Oilers initially tried stuffing it with the six-foot-five, 220-pound frame of former Los Angeles Kings blue liner Josh Brown, who also looked like a potential replacement for the towering Desharnais.

But considering Brown didn’t reach the regular season before winding up on the farm in Bakersfield, Calif., the Oilers were left with Plan B.

Speaking of Plan B, the Oilers also left themselves looking for a replacement for Darnell Nurse after trading away his partner, the consistent, if not flashy Cody Ceci.

Ceci was dealt to the San Jose Sharks for Ty Emberson on Aug. 19 in an effort to save around $2.3 million in salary cap space. While not insignificant, the amount might end up looking like chump change if losing three impact players on the defence turns out to be a bridge too far.

The new make-up

With no single suitors stepping up their performance to fill either of the gaps, the Oilers are left in a bit of a precarious position with Emberson, Troy Stecher and pro-tryout pickup Travis Dermott involved in a three-way rotation throughout those two spots.

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But it’s gotten to the point where no one knows where they belong. Even the established Nurse has been bumping over from his spot on left defence in the second pair, to take turns on the right side in games.

It’s become messy with Emberson. It’s obvious he’s best suited to play on right defence in the third pairing with Kulak and leave Stecher and Dermott to battle it out next to Nurse (even if neither are a tried-and-true second pairing player).

One thing to remember is Emberson must play at least 50 games this season (over the regular-season and playoffs) to avoid becoming an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

What it means

So, here we are.

And now management expects Coffey to magically make it all come together again and give this group a defensive foundation on which to build another long post-season run.

We’re not saying it can’t happen. After what was witnessed a year ago, anything can happen. But the reality is, with the small sample size of what’s been on display so far, this roster has lost too much in the way of chemistry to make that same sort of magic.

With the back end faltering, goaltending is once again an issue and more pressure is being put on the forwards to outscore all of the team’s problems.

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And that puts them right back to being the same ol’ Oilers they’ve always been, which has been proven over and over as anything but the successful formula come playoff time.

So, it’s looking more and more like last season’s run might just have been lightning in a bottle. And that lightning isn’t likely to strike twice.

E-mail: [email protected]

On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge

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