April 6, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers clinched a playoff spot for the fifth consecutive season by defeating the Colorado Avalanche 6-2 on Friday night. GM Ken Holland has made the playoffs in all five of his seasons with the Oilers. The team has finished in second place in the division in the previous four seasons. There is still time to catch the Vancouver Canucks for the division title this season, but the Oilers sit in second place once again, five points back with seven games to play and one game in hand.

The fact that the Oilers are where they are right now is even more impressive considering that they were ten points back of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference on American Thanksgiving. 

Related: Jeff Jackson believes the Oilers can still dig out of early-season hole

Emily Sadler put out a great article for Sportsnet about the fortunes of teams inside and outside of playoff spots on American Thanksgiving. Credit goes to her for the stats I’m about to share. Prior to this season, 184 out of 240 teams in a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving in the salary cap era have gone on to make the playoffs (these figures do not include the COVID shortened seasons of 2019-20 and 2020-21). 

That’s 76.7%, which means that only 23.3% of teams outside of the playoffs on American Thanksgiving go on to make the playoffs. Of the 56 teams that have gone on to make it in this situation, 31 were within one point of a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving. Only 25 teams have made it after being more than a point back of a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving (10.42%).

The Dallas Stars made the 2014 playoffs after being eight points back of a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving in 2013. The St. Louis Blues famously came back from the crypt to win the Stanley Cup in 2019. They were seven points out of a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving in 2018. Interestingly enough, the Blues missed the playoffs the year before after having a ten point cushion on a playoff spot on American Thanksgiving, which was the second time a team had done that in the salary cap era (the 2015-16 Montreal Canadiens blew an eleven point cushion).

The Oilers’ ten point deficit is now the largest American Thanksgiving deficit to be overcome to make the playoffs in the salary cap era. It also ties the all-time record. The 1959-60 Chicago Blackhawks and the 1970-71 Toronto Maple Leafs matched this feat. The league had six teams in 1959-60, and it had expanded to fourteen teams in time for the 1970-71 season. What the Oilers have from American Thanksgiving onwards has been historic.

American Thanksgiving was on November 23, 2023. The Oilers were in the midst of an Eastern road trip. They lost the first three games of that road trip. They left the state of Florida battered and bruised after a 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning and a 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers. They moved on to Raleigh to face the Carolina Hurricanes on November 22, 2023, and they got their butts handed to them in the first period. The Hurricanes took a 4-0 lead in the first period en route to a 6-3 victory.

Those three games were the first road games of head coach Kris Knoblauch’s tenure behind the Oilers bench. He made his debut on November 13, 2023 in a home victory against the New York Islanders. The Oilers beat the Seattle Kraken on the strength of an Evander Kane hat trick in Knoblauch’s second game, and then they took off for the Eastern road trip mentioned in the previous paragraph. The team was 2-3 under their new coach, who was hired after a 3-9-1 start under previous coach Jay Woodcroft, and they had just got the wheels blown off of them in Raleigh. They sat in 30th place in the league, ten points outside of a playoff spot.

Related: Oilers Fire Woodcroft and Manson & Name Knoblauch and Coffey as replacements

I don’t know what was said after that game or prior to the team’s next game against the Washington Capitals on November 24, 2023. Whatever it was, it clearly worked. The Oilers steamrolled the Capitals by a score of 5-0 that day. That game was the first of an eight-game winning streak.

A portion of that winning streak occurred during a stretch where the Oilers played eight out of nine games at home. That included a six-game homestand in mid-December. The Oilers lost the final two games of that homestand (to the Lightning and the Panthers). Then they departed for another Eastern road trip, this time starting in Long Island. The Oilers lost the first game of that trip to the New York Islanders. 

It would be their last loss until February. The Oilers absolutely went off by winning sixteen consecutive games between December 21, 2023 and January 27, 2024. Yes, they went undefeated for the entire month of January! That winning streak is tied for the second longest winning streak of all-time in the NHL. Their eight-game winning streak vaulted them back into playoff contention. Their sixteen-game winning streak put them into contention for the division.

Knoblauch’s record before the all-star break was 26-6. He only had six losses in 32 games prior to the all-star break. That sixteen-game winning streak represented half of Knoblauch’s tenure at the time! The Oilers currently have 24 regulation losses. Twelve of those occurred before American Thanksgiving! Their .827 points percentage is the best mark in the league since American Thanksgiving.

Overall, Knoblauch’s record is 43-15-4 entering play on Saturday. The team’s turnaround under Knoblauch has been nothing short of tremendous. The Oilers have clinched a playoff spot with seven games left to play, which was nearly unthinkable in November.

We can enjoy this for now, Oilers fans. The work they have done to get here has been fantastic, but the work isn’t close to done yet. They are still chasing the Canucks for the division crown, and Connor McDavid is still chasing a sixth Art Ross Trophy and the first 100 assist season since 1990-91. The real work starts on April 20th though. The Oilers have some unfinished business to attend to this spring.