March 5, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

Edmonton Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch has the “F” word trending in Edmonton right now. No, not THAT “F” word. The Oilers bench boss has called the team “fragile” on multiple occasions since returning to action after the 4 Nations Face-off break, most recently after their 6-2 drubbing at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night.

“Our start was outstanding. We were skating well, moving the puck, spent a lot of time in the offensive zone, we scored the powerplay goal. We had a couple strong shifts after that, and then the goal against… (pause)… A couple guys stopped playing, thought the puck went off over the glass. It didn’t, and we got caught. Goal against. And after that, we’re a fragile team and when things aren’t going well, we lose our game. I thought our start was exactly how we needed to play and guys were ready, and then a little bit of adversity and we’re a shell of ourselves.”

There was a clear sense of frustration in Knoblauch’s voice when he spoke after Tuesday’s game. He rarely shows emotion and is typically calm and composed. I’m sure the players are frustrated too. We know fans are frustrated.

The team got outscored 13-6 in a weekend back-to-back against the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals in their first games back after the break. They followed that up with a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and a 4-3 loss to the Florida Panthers in the building where they lost Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final. A 3-1 win in Carolina on Saturday brought a brief reprieve from the losing before returning home and laying an egg against the Ducks on Tuesday. The games in Sunrise and Raleigh that closed out the road trip were the only two games where the Oilers didn’t fall behind early.

This Oilers team has proven that it can drag itself back into games before, but that trait has clearly abandoned them. There was a noticeable emotional let down when they got down early during the opening games of the road trip, which is uncharacteristic for a team that typically takes on the characteristics of its coach. There was a sense of calm coming from the team at the start of this season when things weren’t going their way, but the quiet strength that once appeared under the calmness has seemingly dissolved into fragility, as the coach put it.

We’ve seen the Oilers go through similar droughts like this in years past. The 3-9-1 start under Jay Woodcroft that led to Knoblauch’s hiring last season immediately comes to mind. There was also the 2-11-2 stretch under Dave Tippett in 2021-22 that ultimately led to his dismissal as well.

That was approximately when the trend of playing poorly immediately after breaks began. The only two wins in that 2-11-2 stretch under Tippett came right before the league paused briefly for a league-wide COVID outbreak. They lost their next seven games coming out of that break. They also lost the first two games coming out of the All-Star break that season, which ended up being Tippett’s final two games as coach of the Oilers.

In 2022-23, they won two of their first three games after the 2023 All-Star break, but then proceeded to lose four in a row.

Last season, they had that horrendous start followed by a bunch of winning streaks. They won their last sixteen games before the 2024 All-Star game. They lost in Vegas in their first game back after that break, then went to Anaheim and escaped with a win that they didn’t necessarily deserve, and got thoroughly trounced by the Kings in a 4-0 loss the next night.

We’ve seen this movie enough times before to know that the Oilers aren’t great coming out of breaks. We also know that when it rains, it pours for this team. These Oilers are a streaky bunch! When things go well, it feels like they will never lose again. When things are going poorly, it feels like they’ll never win again.

This is one of the oldest teams in the league. They should know better than to do the things that get them into these positions, yet it keeps happening. They should know how to prepare physically and mentally during breaks so that they come back ready to compete at a high level, but that isn’t the result we’ve seen repeatedly for whatever reason. They know what they need to do to get themselves out of this funk. 

One would think that they would start doing those things before they lose six of seven games, but here we are. I realize it isn’t as easy as flipping a switch, but this is a veteran team that has been through this before. I have faith that they will get back to winning hockey soon.

For now, we’re left to ponder what is going wrong. The fact that we are days away from the trade deadline has only intensified the frustration in Oil Country. The fact that the team has a sticky situation involving a star player with a large cap hit that may or may not be available to them to spend this week is only making the frustration worse for fans.

Agonizing cries for the team to fix the goaltending have grown from the usual white noise to blaring levels. Both Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard are getting burns from the red lights going off behind them repeatedly. I refuse to put these losses on the goalies, but they haven’t done themselves any favours in this market with their recent play.

We can certainly look to the team defence completely breaking down in front of the goalies time and time again. It isn’t any one player. It’s the team as a whole. Their defensive structure has completely abandoned them. It’s mostly on the players not executing the system that the coach has in place, but the coaching staff has to step in to address the problem if they aren’t getting the behaviours they seek from the players.

The offence has pretty much completely dried up again, aside from Leon Draisaitl, who is my choice for league MVP right now. Connor McDavid is producing at an elite level, but that’s lower than his normal standard. Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are struggling to put up points, as are Draisaitl’s most consistent linemates, Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin. Connor Brown has one goal in his last 30 games. The only goal that Mattias Janmark has scored this season that wasn’t into an empty net went in off his pants. There isn’t much more coming from Adam Henrique, Kasperi Kapanen, and Corey Perry right now either. Jeff Skinner is producing, but he can’t stay in the lineup for whatever reason.

Evan Bouchard has been struggling with turnovers all season. While his ratio of turnovers to puck touches is quite low, his giveaways per 60 is at a career-high level this year. Mattias Ekholm has been on the ice for 0.35 more goals against per 60 at five-on-five this season than last season. Darnell Nurse and Brett Kulak have slowed down a little bit compared to their mid-season performances.

I don’t care who they get at the trade deadline. They could go get Sidney Crosby, Roman Josi, and Connor Hellebuyck; or they could get Paul Coffey to hop over the boards and get him to place a call to his friend Wayne Gretzky to join the team as well. It wouldn’t matter. 

I don’t care how many hits Trent Frederic or Evander Kane dish out. It’s irrelevant if the team plays at half of their max ability. It doesn’t matter if they go get a goalie or not. If the team plays like this, a new goalie wouldn’t be enough to save the day.

Related: Oilers acquire Frederic

My point is that EVERYONE on the Oilers needs to be better. They all have a higher level of play in them. If they play like this as a group, they won’t go far. If they play like they can, then they have a chance to win it all.

As for the fragility issue, my theory is that they’ve become so comfortable in all situations that it’s starting to work against them. Their belief that they can come back in games has become too strong, so they don’t end up taking their compete level up that extra notch. Hopefully this stretch serves as the reality check they need.