January 3, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

The beginning of a new year is a time for celebration and reflection. We celebrate the year ahead that brings potential and opportunity. It’s also a chance to reflect on the year that was and to ponder how to improve in the coming year. These are my new year’s musings for 2023.

2022 was an exciting year for the Edmonton Oilers. It started with Evander Kane signing with the club in January. Their fantastic spring playoff run saw a home game seven against the Los Angeles Kings and a captivating Battle of Alberta series win. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl announced their arrival on the playoff stage by torching the competition in the playoff scoring race despite only playing in three rounds. There was a lot of celebrating happening on 104 Avenue and all around the city last May and June.

Last spring also saw the eventual Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche hoist the Clarence Campbell Bowl at Rogers Place after sweeping the Oilers in the Western Conference Final. The expectations were already high for McDavid and Draisaitl’s Oilers, but that taste of playoff success only wet the whistles of Oilers fans and hockey experts everywhere.

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That set the stage for the 2022-23 season, which has seen the team fail to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon them. They enter 2023 with a mediocre record of 20-16-2, which has them in fifth spot in the Pacific Division and sitting in the final wild card spot in the Western Conference.

We have to celebrate McDavid and Draisaitl’s seasons to date. They sit atop the league in scoring once again. McDavid is on an incredible pace with 72 points in 38 games. Draisaitl is having an amazing season as well. He has 57 points in 36 games thus far. Stuart Skinner has provided plenty of reason for celebration. He’s got a 12-9-1 record with a .917 save percentage and a 2.78 goals against average in 23 games. Skinner’s play earned him a new three year contract that will kick in next season. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is having a career year, and Zach Hyman has been stellar.

The team’s slow start has offered plenty of reasons for reflection. Evander Kane’s injury certainly didn’t help matters. Neither did injuries to Kailer Yamamoto, Warren Foegele, and Ryan McLeod. Goal scoring isn’t an issue because of the league’s top two scorers, but the team has struggled to keep goals out of their net. 

Jack Campbell’s tough start has many people reconsidering the wisdom in signing him to that five year contract. Darnell Nurse has made mistakes in the past, but the magnitude of some of his mistakes this season is far higher now because of his $9.25 million cap hit and because of the timing of them in some cases. Evan Bouchard’s underlying numbers are fine, but the big issue is his GF% of 38.46% at five-on-five. 

Bouchard is just one young Oiler that hasn’t progressed as hoped this season. Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway haven’t been as impactful as the team might have hoped they would be. Jesse Puljujarvi and Kailer Yamamoto have both regressed this season.

There has been a lot of pondering about how to improve the team this season. The Oilers have been mentioned in a lot of trade rumours, which makes sense given the pressure that the team is under to win now. The loss of Duncan Keith has been greater than we all thought it would be. The group of Brett Kulak, Broberg, Markus Niemelainen, and Ryan Murray just hasn’t been able to fill the void. 

Defencemen including Jakob Chychrun, Joel Edmundson, and Vladislav Gavrikov have been linked to the Oilers at different times. Chychrun is the only one of the three that would truly improve the team’s odds this season, but it sounds like the Oilers aren’t interested in paying the price for him, which is wise in my opinion.

This is a tough year for the Oilers to add at the deadline. The Oilers will have a little bit of cap space until Kane returns, but they can’t spend that cap space because Kane will return this season. They will have to shed $3,082,964 in cap space to activate Kane, let alone add a player of any significance. Any trade they make will have to either be money in, money out or have the Oilers reduce their cap spending. It’s hard to improve a team with that kind of trade. That’s not what fans want to hear the year after a deep playoff run, but the reality is that they will be in a better position to add next season when they will have more cap space.

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So, potential improvement for the rest of the season might have to come from within. The bad news is the team is fighting for a wild card spot. The good news is they haven’t played their best hockey as a team yet. Kane will return. Campbell is a streaky goalie that hasn’t had a hot streak yet this year. Nurse has a higher level. Bouchard can be better. Broberg and Holloway can progress. Puljujarvi and Yamamoto both had a bad half and a good half of the season last year. Maybe their good halves will both come in the second half this season. 

Sometimes it takes one player raising his game unexpectedly to turn things around for a team, such as Yamamoto did in 2020 after being recalled. Klim Kostin looks like a guy that could have that kind of impact for the Oilers. Kostin has played great hockey for the Oilers this year, and he’s starting to heat up. He’s got three goals in the last two games and five in 22 games now, which is a 19 goal pace over 82 games. Kostin is getting more and more confident every game. He’s been showing the skill that made him a first round pick in 2017. He’s got size and a willingness to use it to protect pucks and to deliver punishing hits.

Kostin fell to the St. Louis Blues with the 31st pick in the 2017 draft. He has the raw skills to have gone higher in that draft. He played in Russia in his draft year and he missed a chunk of time with a shoulder injury that season. Both factors likely played roles in his falling down the draft board. We’re getting glimpses of his talent now. He took a pass from Mattias Janmark, made a quick move in front of the net, and went bar down on the backhand for his first goal against the Seattle Kraken on Friday night. Kostin scored a second goal in that game on a tip from the high slot. Janmark assisted on another Kostin goal on Saturday against the Winnipeg Jets. Kostin drifted into the high slot off a faceoff, and Janmark found him. Kostin released it quickly and beat Connor Hellebuyck. Kostin has a great opportunity in front of him, and he seems to be making the most of it.

I don’t know what 2023 will bring for the Oilers. All I know is that I’m looking forward to finding out! I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season, and I wish you all a happy new year. All the best in 2023!