Our Edmonton Oilers put up an awful performance last night against the Sabres. After winning four of their previous five, the Oilers dropped a tough one, 5–1, at the Key Bank Centre in Buffalo. There honestly isn’t much to say other than it was just an all-around horrid effort on a Monday night where another …
Our Edmonton Oilers put up an awful performance last night against the Sabres. After winning four of their previous five, the Oilers dropped a tough one, 5–1, at the Key Bank Centre in Buffalo. There honestly isn’t much to say other than it was just an all-around horrid effort on a Monday night where another win could’ve given them a real push in the Pacific standings.
It feels like this team still hasn’t found an identity. They struggle to win games cleanly, they struggle to hold leads in regulation, and even though this is technically their best start in three years, it doesn’t feel like the boys in orange and blue have found their A-game at all. Only 4 regulation wins in the Oilers’ 20 games played, and it’s starting to get worrisome.
I do think it’ll turn around, just like it usually does in past seasons, but there are so many issues right now. At times, it almost looks like they don’t care much about regular-season play — maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not. Only the guys in that room know, and they’re the ones who set the tone every day. Something has to change. They haven’t been good enough defensively, and they haven’t gotten enough saves. If they want to start stacking wins, at least one of those two things needs to get fixed, and fast.
That’s the story from the actual game itself. The Oilers came out flat, giving up way too much time and space in the defensive zone. Buffalo hemmed them in shifts at a time, and Edmonton never really responded with any real pushback. The Sabres scored early, controlled the pace, and forced the Oilers into sloppy turnovers that turned into grade-A chances. Even the one goal Edmonton did score felt like a small break rather than any real momentum swing. It was just one of those nights where everything looked disconnected — bad coverage, bad puck management, and not enough urgency from shift to shift.
Another big problem for the Oilers has been the lack of help from the bottom six. After losing a bunch of guys in the offseason, that group just hasn’t lived up to this year’s expectations for a team that’s supposed to be chasing a Cup. Meanwhile, players like Connor Brown, Corey Perry, and others are catching fire on different teams, and the Oilers are struggling badly to find any kind of secondary scoring.
You can’t rely on McDavid and Draisaitl to do absolutely everything. If this team wants to get going, they’re going to need more contributions from the guys who aren’t getting the top minutes. Even if it’s not scoring, it needs to be something — perfect defensive play, physicality, energy, anything. Right now, they just don’t have an identity, and it shows.
The goalies just have not been good enough so far this season, and it’s not entirely their fault, but there’s still no excuse for the numbers they’ve put up. Stuart Skinner is sitting at an .889 save percentage, and Calvin Pickard has a league-worst .836. The defence is nowhere near good either, but the goal tending hasn’t been able to bail them out at any point, and finding a new goalie right now is a really tough task. I do think the Oilers getting a new goalie would help a lot. I’ll admit I’m pretty biased on this topic, but it just doesn’t feel to me like Stu is an elite goalie who can win you a Cup, at least not right now. They just haven’t been able to get that level of goal-tending yet, and it’s starting to show.
Hopefully, Stu can turn it around, because if he doesn’t, the Oilers might be forced to make another move in goal. My friend William actually wrote an article on this — you can check it out here.
The Oilers have struggled defensively in their own zone so much this year. Whether it’s leaving a guy wide open in the slot or just being too slow and lazy getting back to make a play, it doesn’t feel like this team has any real defensive identity. At times, it honestly looks like they don’t even want to be out there. Bouchard has looked rough for most of the season, Kulak hasn’t been great, Ekholm hasn’t been himself, Nurse hasn’t been great either, and Walman has been just okay as he’s worked his way back. Too many times, they’re leaving players wide open in prime scoring areas.
There have also been way too many mistakes with the puck — bad reads, bad turnovers — and a lot of them have ended up in the back of their net. This has always been an issue for the Oilers this season, and as much as I’d say they should fix it, they really can’t do much because this is the core they’ve committed to. On top of that, they still don’t have a true sixth shutdown defenceman. Instead, they’ve got Alec Regula and Ty Emberson rotating in and out of that sixth spot, and neither has really been able to lock it down. It would be huge if they could address that at the deadline or in the offseason, because they clearly need another reliable body back there.
Hopefully, the group can start playing like they did in the playoffs and figure things out quickly. With the goal-tending being what it is, it has to be one or the other — either the defence gets better, or they get a better goalie. And right now, I don’t see the Oilers making a change in net just yet.
All in all, as an Oilers fan, I just hope they can get back to their normal game and start being the fun Oilers we all know. I know they’ll figure it out at some point this year, but it has to happen sooner rather than later, because things are going to start heating up fast if they keep losing games. Rumours about head coach Chris Knoblauch will start popping up if they can’t turn this around, and that’s the last thing I’d want. He’s been here the past couple of years and has made some really solid adjustments for them.
But at the end of the day, they need to start showing that they actually care about the regular season. I’m not even sure what more they need — they’ve had every boost in the lineup you could ask for. The ball’s in their court now. Let’s see how they adjust.
