October 22, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

It’s been a tough first five games of the 2023-24 season for the Edmonton Oilers. They’re sporting a 1-3-1 record after multiple games that were far from their standard, and a couple of close games where sloppy mistakes cost them wins. To make matters worse, Connor McDavid will miss a week or two with an upper body injury sustained on Saturday night. There are lots of reasons to be concerned about the Oilers right now, but I’m going to counteract the frustration, negativity, and pessimism with some reasons for optimism.

INJURY UPDATE ⬇️

Connor McDavid suffered an upper body injury during last night’s game vs. the Jets & is expected to be out of the #Oilers lineup for one to two weeks. pic.twitter.com/qU5dNKuUcC

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) October 22, 2023

The Oilers have a five-on-five shooting percentage of 6.14%. Yes, the same Oilers that led the league in goals last season are currently 26th in shooting percentage at five-on-five. They finished eighth in the league last season with a 9.14% shooting percentage. I can’t promise a return to the same percentage as last season, but there’s too much talent on the team to be stuck at 6.14% all season.

That ties into their 28th place PDO (.960), combination of shooting percentage and save percentage. It’s commonly referred to as a stat that measures luck. The team’s shooting percentage is likely to rise. Stuart Skinner is currently rocking a .818 save percentage, largely based on his back to back .750 outings against the Vancouver Canucks. He made that late and  ill-advised decision to engage in a puck race that he lost in Saturday’s game, but I liked his game aside from that. 

Jack Campbell has a .902 save percentage, which is boosted by his 43 save, .977 save percentage start in Nashville. The numbers don’t back it up, but I thought he played fairly well against the Philadelphia Flyers as well. There was one shot that I think he would like to have back, but was otherwise good. My point is that there is plenty of room for both facets of PDO to rise for the Oilers.

The Oilers are currently ranked 8th in the league in five-on-five expected goals for percentage (55.34%). In case you didn’t know, expected goals percentage is based on the quality of shots and scoring chances in relation to the opponent. The Oilers’ 55.34% expected goals for percentage suggests that they are getting more high quality chances than they allow at five-on-five. They’re ranked second in Corsi for percentage (57.49%). They’re fifth in scoring chances for percentage (56.28%), and their high danger scoring chances for percentage is second in the league (60.23%).

Despite all of that, the Oilers are ranked 28th in high danger goals for percentage (28.57%) and 26th in goals for percentage (38.89%). The results don’t accurately reflect the underlying numbers. Based on how low the goal share figures are, the likelihood of the goal share rising is higher than the underlying numbers falling. There’s enough evidence to believe that the goal share will regress to the mean.

I’m going to take this opportunity to give some of the spotlight to Dylan Holloway and Ryan McLeod. They were playing excellent hockey on the third line in the first four games before head coach Jay Woodcroft broke up their line for Saturday’s game.

	CF%	GF%	xGF%	HDCF%
55-71	63.38% (45-26)	–	70.91%	87.50% (14-2)

Their speed is making a positive impact. They’re winning races to pucks, and they’re creating chances in the offensive zone as well. They have 14 high danger scoring chances, compared to just two allowed! The goals haven’t come for them yet, but their underlying numbers are too good for them not to break the dam in short order.

I particularly want to commend Holloway on his play. He’s leading the team in blocked shots, two of which were quite noticeable. He dove in front of a shot late in an 8-1 game in Vancouver. That puck hit him in his oft injured wrist, which thankfully didn’t result in another injury for Holloway. In Saturday’s game, he had his helmet knocked off after a faceoff, then blocked a shot on his way to the bench. Holloway has been penalty killing as well, which is something he didn’t do last year. He’s also cutting to the middle with the puck and looking to shoot. I like his game a lot right now.

The Oilers have allowed twenty goals in their five games. Woodcroft implemented a new defensive zone system during training camp. A lot of people have jumped to the conclusion that the Oilers are struggling to catch on to the new system. Here’s a breakdown of how each of the twenty goals were allowed:

Rush: 7

PK: 6

5v5 Bounce: 2

SHG Allowed: 2

3-on-3 OT: 1

Tip: 1

DZ Breakdown: 1

There has only been one true defensive zone breakdown that resulted in a goal. Evan Bouchard got stripped of the puck in the corner, and JT Miller found Brock Boeser sitting in a soft spot. Boeser hit the top corner. One of the two five-on-five bounces that resulted in a goal against bounced to a man that Philip Broberg should’ve been covering rather than standing four feet away from, but the puck got there on a lucky bounce.

Defensive zone play isn’t the issue. The biggest issue is defending the rush. Woodcroft also implemented a more passive 1-1-3 neutral zone system, but the goals allowed off the rush were the result of turnovers where they didn’t have a chance to get into that defensive posture. Turnovers are killers. Now, some of the rushes in question were simple two-on-two rushes that were poorly played by the defencemen. Those rushes can’t and won’t continue to result in goals against at this high of a rate.

The penalty kill is the other glaring issue. They have allowed six goals on the penalty kill in five games. They can’t expect to win games when they spot a goal to the opposition every night. It needs to get better, but they’ve gone through stretches like this many times before and managed to survive.

Related: Smacked

Sure, there are issues with the Oilers right now. The penalty kill is sputtering, the team looks slow, Evander Kane looks like a shell of his former self, Connor Brown looks like he’s several steps behind, the depth scoring is still in hibernation, they’re shooting themselves in the foot with bad turnovers and poor decision making, they’re not getting good goaltending often enough, and McDavid is going to miss a few games at least now. Having said all of that, there are still a lot of reasons for optimism. Don’t worry too much, Oilers fans. The Oilers will get it going.