Oilers prepare to face Nurse for first time
October 10, 2026
October 24, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg
Ten games into their season, the Edmonton Oilers have enjoyed an 8-1-1 start despite a rash of injuries to important players. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins played his first game of the season in Thursday’s electrifying 6-5 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes. Zach Hyman, Jason Dickinson, and Jake Walman have all missed games already. Mattias Ekholm (a week to ten days) and Devon Levi (three weeks) both sustained injuries in Thursday’s game. Matt Savoie, Frederik Andersen, and Mattias Janmark haven’t played at all and will be a while still.
Here’s a closer look at why the Oilers are off to such a hot start:
The Obvious
Let’s start with the obvious. The Oilers have been leaning on their superstars. Connor McDavid has 31 points through ten games, which is something Wayne Gretzky never did. Only Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy have had more prolific ten-game segments to open a season. Leon Draisaitl’s 21 points (2nd in the league) and Evan Bouchard’s nineteen points (T-4th in the league) pale in comparison. You won’t lose many games if you have three players averaging a combined 7.1 points per game.
I don’t expect this torrid pace to last, but it’s the biggest reason the Oilers are rolling right now.
Ease of schedule
The defending Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes were the OIlers’ toughest test to date. Their early opponents weren’t juggernauts. The Vancouver Canucks bested the Oilers on opening night, but they’ve lost nine straight games and have struggled as expected. The San Jose Sharks have been pesky, but they just earned their first regulation win of the season in Ottawa on Thursday. The Anaheim Ducks aren’t the team they were last season. The Seattle Kraken and the Utah Mammoth are both off to terrific starts themselves, but still have much to prove before their current positions in the standings aren’t surprises. The Minnesota Wild, who were incredible last season, came to Rogers Place without three of their regular defencemen including Brock Faber and Jared Spurgeon. The Wild weren’t the best version of themselves. The Hurricanes were by far the toughest test of the young season for the Oilers.
In fact, the Oilers’ schedule doesn’t really induce much fear until mid-November when they face the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Hurricanes on an eastern road trip.
Reduction in Rush Chances Against
Teams have burned the Oilers in transition for multiple years. It seemed like they just couldn’t get out of their own way at times. Mike Kelly broke it down nicely on the NHL Network on October 15th. Last season, the Oilers ranked 30th in rush chances against, meaning they gave up the third most rush chances. As of October 15th, the Oilers were giving up the fewest rush chances in the league.
More simply put, they aren’t shooting themselves in the foot as often as they used to. Why are we seeing this change this season?
New Oilers coach Mike Babcock has them managing the puck much more conservatively this season. Bob Stauffer has been talking about getting pucks deep and making the defence turn non-stop this season, and there’s a reason for that. As Kelly pointed out, the Oilers have gone from dumping the puck in the second least often last season to the second most often this season. Kelly also noted how that is reflected in the dump in rates for individual players including the superstars. Babcock clearly wants conservative decisions with the puck and aggressive puck pursuit to get it back.
It’s not my favourite style of hockey. I much prefer a puck possession oriented philosophy; but hey, dump and chase is working really well for the Oilers right now, so I’m not going to complain.
PDO Heater
In case you’re unfamiliar with PDO, it combines team shooting percentage and team save percentage. 1.00 is about average. The Oilers are at 1.065 in all situations right now according to Natural Stat Trick. That is second best in the league. Prior to Thursday’s wild win, the Oilers led the league in PDO (1.068).
The reason for the Oilers’ high PDO this season is the team’s shooting percentage. Their 18.55% shooting percentage leads the league by 3.55% (!!). For context, the Dallas Stars led the league with a 13.15% shooting percentage last season.
They also lead in five-on-five shooting percentage (15.25%), albeit by not nearly as much of a margin. The Oilers’ powerplay is second in the league (35.3%), but that alone is not why the Oilers’ shooting percentage in all situations is as high as it is.
18.55% is not sustainable, but it’s definitely a factor in the team’s hot start.
Save percentage is a part of this equation as well. Last season, the Oilers were dead last in 5v5 on-ice save percentage (88.95%). Through ten games this season, they’re at 89.9%, which is eighteenth in the league. That’s not a fantastic number, but it is an improvement over last season. The Oilers have also been in some kooky games so far this season. I don’t expect many more 9-7 wins. My point there is that I think the goaltending has been better than what the team’s on-ice save percentage shows.
Wrap
There has certainly been a lot to love about the Oilers’ start. The superstars are absolutely killing it, and everyone else is doing enough to not cancel out the work of the top players. Aside from the injury bug, it’s all rainbows and sunshine in Edmonton these days. I’ve pointed out some statistical factors that seem unlikely to last 84 games, but let’s all just enjoy what we’re watching for now.
