December 13, 2025 by Josh Boulton

The 2025-26 Edmonton Oilers are too easy to play against. Opposing teams are too comfortable. The games are quiet. The vibes are…flat. If the energy this season seems lower than you’re used to from this traditionally high-octane team, you’re not wrong. There’s an important element missing lately: the Oilers don’t hit.

According to NHL.com, the blue and orange are ranked 28th in the NHL in team hits with 548 through the first 31 games of 2025-26. That works out to 17.45 hits per 60 minutes played. To be fair and to give some context, the McDavid era Oilers even at their best haven’t been designed to run teams out of the rink physically, and that’s ok. Two trips to the Stanley Cup Final and a third Western Conference Final appearance since 2021-22 suggest you can get by pretty well with an average amount of hits, but that’s the point here. They aren’t even close to the average anymore.

For the three seasons between 2021-22 and 2023-24 the Edmonton, Alberta based club lived smack dab in the middle of the pack. They ranked 15th, 16th, and 16th in the NHL in hits per 60 respectively by posting remarkably consistent hit totals of 1853, 1874, and 1873 hits per 82 games, or between 22.33 and 22.53 per game. 

That stretch of electric campaigns culminated in a trip to the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, a thrilling seven-game battle against the NHL’s perennial hit leaders, the Florida Panthers. The average hitting Oilers more than held their own against the arguably overly physical Panthers, and in the end the series came down to one single goal. 

But for some reason things changed after that summer. Through 82 games played in the follow-up 2024-25 regular season, Edmonton mustered a mere 1,241 total hits (15.02 hits per 60), good for 32nd place, dead last in the entire NHL. Every team in the top ten was pumping out at least 23 hits per game. By contrast, the Panthers actually even managed to get slightly nastier. They led the league again, and their previous season’s hit total of 2,339 increased to 2,446 (29.51 hits per 60), almost double that of the Oilers. 

Related: Does the Oilers’ lack of physicality preclude them from a Stanley Cup?

Even though both teams were able to punch their return tickets to the Stanley Cup Final, the 2025 rematch reflected the regular season differences in philosophy. This time around, the Oilers were no match for the physically intimidating Panthers. They were left with their tails between their legs and headed into 2025-26 with many more questions than answers. 

Related: There’s still a lot of time for McDavid’s legacy to be written

Based on the stats through the first 31 games of this year, those answers are yet to be determined. When it comes to a hitting identity, the team just can’t seem to make up its mind. The two-time defending Western Conference playoff champions have registered eighteen hits or less in sixteen games out of 31 they’ve played so far. Their record in those games is a shaky five wins, seven losses, three overtime losses, and one shootout loss (5-7-3-1). In the nine games where they’ve posted 20 hits or more, that record skyrockets to 6-2-0-1. On five occasions, the Oilers have clocked in at exactly 19 hits. Fittingly, the record from those games is an exactly average 2-2-1-0. 

The last five years would suggest that to be successful, the Oilers would need to increase their output from their current average of 17.45 hits per 60 back up to somewhere between 22 or 23. With the loss of physical players like Corey Perry and Evander Kane, it’s fair to wonder where those extra five hits each game will come from; but there’s actually good reason to be optimistic it will happen. So who’s going to make up the difference?

Let’s start with Trent Frederic. For how quiet fans think he’s been so far in 2025-26, he actually ranks 35^th in hits in the league so far with 77 (30^th amongst forwards), and he’s trending up. He delivered eight hits in an October 26 overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks, tying a career high; and after a stretch of 21 hits in the previous ten games, he registered six hits in game 31, a 3-1 win against the Detroit Red Wings. His career-high for hits in a single season is 204 (2023-24 with Boston) according to Hockey Reference, and he’s on a realistic pace to exceed that for the Oilers, trending towards finishing with around 210.

Curtis Lazar has only appeared in fifteen games so far, but he’s been effective in the hit department, accumulating two or more hits in ten of them, including a season high four hits registered in each of the past two games. The Oilers are 8-5-2-0 with Lazar in the lineup.

The really bright spot has been Vasily Podkolzin. He started off hot, racking up 63 hits in the first nineteen games (3.31 per 60), and he’s only gotten more physical since. In the last five games, he’s been an absolute wrecking ball with 22 hits (4.4 per 60), notching at least three per game and matching a season high seven hits in game 31. He hasn’t done that since the season opener. Podkolzin currently ranks first in hits on the Oilers with 96, good for eleventh in the NHL, and is on a season pace for a staggering 253. This would decisively eclipse last year’s career high of 211. As context, Evander Kane convincingly led the Oilers in 2023-24 in hits with 250.

The Oilers have plenty of other reasonably expected sources for extra hitting.

Kasperi Kapanen has only been able to appear in six games this season, but he registered sixteen hits in those games. That’s a pace of 218 hits per 82 games. His career average is 101 per 82, so when he does return that standard won’t likely be sustainable; but it’s not out of the question to hope he gets back to the pace of between around 115-140 hits per season he was able to maintain in both Pittsburgh in 2022-23 and St. Louis in 2023-24.

Connor Clattenburg has only played five games and he’s registered seventeen hits. He should return from an eye injury in another week or so.  

Darnell Nurse is on pace for only 119 hits this season, down from 161 (2024-25) and 168 (2023-24). That would be a career-low he’s never even come close to. His career-low is 107 hits in 2016-17, but he accomplished that in just 44 games. His career average per 82 games is 176.

Mattias Ekholm is on pace for a dismal 66 hits, which is actually up from his pace of 52 hits per 82 last season but well down from the 136 hits in 79 games for Edmonton just two years ago. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask him to at least get back up to his career average of 73. 

Ty Emberson and Evan Bouchard are also current Oilers defenders trending below career average hitting pace.  

The Oilers as a team established a new season high of 25 hits in their most recent outing, a 3-1 home ice victory over Detroit. If they want to get back to their average of 22-23 hits per game, they definitely have the horses. It’s just a matter of whether they’re willing to go to the trough to feed.