November 9, 2025 by Kevin McCurdy

I’ve gotten away from writing postgame posts, but this morning after successfully rolling a 20 on the famous Bruce McCurdy “if you’re still mad in the morning, it’s worth being mad about” test, I feel compelled to write something.

Just a cautionary warning, this might be a bit brutal in places, it’s certainly not going to be sunshine and rainbows. Feel free to sip by this if that’s not your vibe today, with my best wishes.

With that said: This team stinks.

It’s not any single aspect, we’re quick as a fanbase to say the Oil need X or must have Y. The reality is it’s multiple complex facets that have led them to this moment, and nobody is innocent. Everyone from management all the way down to the stick boy (figuratively speaking) has some real soul searching to do.

What this team needs most is an identity. Who are the 2025-26 Oilers? We knew who any of the teams in the past four years were. Some versions went Mach 12 with their hair on fire, outscored their mistakes (for the most part) and took extreme risks. Other versions have been about winning through discipline and strong defensive play. Who is this team? What is this team?

Three years ago they had so much talent they could pick at random how to win a hockey game, brute force? Outscore? Defend? Dump and pound? Speedy attack? Cerebral all worldly? The Oilers used to be able to impose their will on the opposing team, but this team can’t even find one of them to reliably execute.

So, what are the problems? These are not in any order resembling the criticality, it’s a logical progression, please keep that in mind.

Goaltending

Goaltending is the elephant in the room. Stuart Skinner has at times looked better than previous years, but it’s a far cry from being steady and reliable. Last night was putrid. The second and third (called back) goals just can’t go in. He made a crucial save at the start of the second period, but by that point the damage had already been done. Two more goals and Skinner left the ice with a -2.5 GSAx. Insert Pickard, the shellacking continues. I don’t blame Pickard for this loss in particular, but his overall body of work this year has been a considerable step back from last year. Last year the team had some success in front of Pickard because they trusted him. It’s becoming increasingly obvious the trust is not there at the moment with either tender. 

I don’t know how this changes, but numerous promising goalies are further down our system, or have passed through waivers this year (Nico Daws [1.51 GAA, 0.942 Sv%], Michael DiPietro [2.17 GAA, 0.929 Sv%]). Other opportunities have passed the Oilers in previous years. Either these guys need to get their shit together starting tomorrow night, or a change is needed. It’s likely time to make a change regardless. Not to throw a bone to the forwards, but expecting any rush chance or breakaway against to either be in the net, hit a post or miss entirely is a crushing thing to play with on your back. This isn’t really an indictment of the individual goalies and more so of the organizational choices that led us here. In my view, Knoblauch’s post-game said everything that needed to be said without saying anything.

Defence

I owe Paul Coffey an apology.  I was hard on him last year for some of the choices made in the playoffs, and I was wrong. Step one that the team can take literally today is getting Coffey back in the room, even if just for a while. It’s clear he can get the best out of some of these guys. On paper, we have one of the best defensive cores in the league; but this dog won’t hunt right now.

There’s an over reliance on point shots that are deeply padding flawed team five-on-five performance. I strongly suspect the point shots are a vain attempt to get the puck inside, and there is just nobody around to make anything of it, I also think it’s being used to try to mitigate rush chances against. It’s not a strategy that’s working for them. The only two guys that should be shooting with any frequency are Evan Bouchard and Jake Walman (and to an extent Mattias Ekholm when he has one of his occasional cerebral pinches). The pairings need to get ironed out, and in all likelihood we need to get back to 3LD-3RD as soon as possible. That means a move that’s probably going to suck.

Offence

Offence? What offence? I have some deployment commentary for the next section, but generating offence for this team is a massive challenge right now. The powerplay is the hottest in the league right now (or was until last night), but has too many shorthanded goals against. Their five-on-five play is outright tepid because they’re playing scared hockey, and it shows in every single thing they do. McDavid was flying at the beginning of last night. Flying. The top line absolutely dominated the Avalanche at five-on-five in terms of Corsi (21-10/68%); but had a far more tepid (but still postive) 51%xG, and ultimately had no goals for and two against.

The rest of the lineup did not fare so well. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got absolutely exposed as a second line centre. He’s a top six winger or a third line center. Please pick one. Most of my thoughts about this are deployment based so here’s last night’s game:

Coaching

I empathize with Kris Knoblauch a bit. His team is floundering, and he’s trying to get life somewhere. He’s not blameless in this. There have been some piss-poor deployment choices this season, and significant effort is being put into being defensively perfect to prevent, well, pretty much anything against. Running Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together last night was a mistake, and I have to say practicing with one set of lines and playing with another doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. I think even though I have been critical of him lately, putting Coffey back in the room might be something to help here and steady this ship a bit. We have to stop firing coaches to solve “dog won’t hunt” problems with this team. I also don’t think this roster is balanced. Having Zach Hyman back will help things, but it’s clearly time to shuffle the deck a bit here. We need more offense, and we’re going to have to take risks to get it. Knoblauch needs to find a way to not have them play scared.

Related: Knoblauch’s reliance on McDavid and Draisaitl

Management

The clock’s ticking. Get this team a goalie and some form of personality or grit. They do not have until the trade deadline to fix the issues they currently have. It’s time to send out some folks to Bakersfield too. If we’re not gonna play the kids, go develop them down south.

Actually, that “clock’s ticking” comment applies to everyone. Historically when this team gets smacked, they get their crap together. I’m not sure this is the same team anymore, only time will tell. Tick-tock.