Oilers Embark On Key Stretch

Tonight starts the final stretch of October for the Oilers. Regardless of what happens, the club will finish with a winning record in the month, which is an achievement in and of itself considering recent years. That said, a 5-4-0 finish would not be good enough for this hockey club. The Oilers could do themselves a lot of good by winning two of these final three games.

At the start of November, Edmonton will head east. That trip starts in Toronto on the 1st and will be the first true test on the road for the club all season. Having a nice cushion and a strong start to fall back on would do wonders for this young hockey team that is still learning to win.

So far, Edmonton has passed all of it’s tests with flying colors. Getting over the hump that is Calgary and sweeping the home-and-home set was a really nice start for this club. Overcoming the loss to Buffalo by beating Carolina next time out was a great sign, while finally standing up to and beating St. Louis was a huge boost of confidence.

The Oilers will be tested again with their first lengthy road trip of the season, something that has hurt the team in recent years. At the very best over the last decade, Oiler fans could hope for .500 hockey when heading out on the road for three or more games. Even then, that was usually an unrealistic ask for this club.

If the Oilers head out to Toronto with seven wins in their pocket, they’ll be set up nicely after one month of hockey. That makes this next stretch so important. The club will host Washington tonight and Ottawa on Sunday, with a visit to Vancouver sandwiched in the middle of those two tilts on Friday night.

Washington is an elite hockey team and represents a really nice measuring stick for the Oilers. The reigning President’s Trophy winning Capitals are playing solid hockey already, so the team will have it’s hands full in a few hours. This is certainly the toughest game of the month.

The Oilers should be able to beat a Vancouver team that has been riding some good luck early on. Vancouver, as of this writing, has lost three in a row and looks very beatable. If Edmonton plays its game, they should finally break through against Vancouver after all those years.

Ottawa, meanwhile, is a tougher test but still very beatable. For all the offensive talent on that roster, they have a very suspect defensive group and have, as of this writing, allowed the most five-on-five goals in the NHL. Edmonton has done pretty well scoring in that situation so far this season.

If they go 2-1-0 and finish the month 7-2-0, then we can start talking about what will keep the Oilers in the race through November. What a nice change of pace that would be, huh? Another test awaits this team in the next few days.

Adding a Winger:

Lowetide got me thinking last night thanks to his post over at OilersNation, which you can read here. Obviously, the McDavid line is clicking right now and is one of the best lines in hockey, but what about the middle six?

As LT points out, the Pouliot-RNH-Kassian line really hasn’t been delivering too much, while Maroon-Draisaitl-Puljujarvi/Slepyshev hasn’t cashed on the ‘soft’ opposition as much as expected.

You could make a case that, as of right now, Edmonton’s second best line has been it’s fourth line of Tyler Pitlick, Mark Letestu and, usually, Anton Lander. That can’t continue if this club hopes to sustain it’s success through the course of the season.

I think both Pouliot and Nugent-Hopkins will be fine, it appears they are both having slow starts, but I wonder about the right wing spot on that line. Is Leon Draisaitl the eventual solution there? It certainly seems like that was the plan for Todd McLellan prior to Drake Caggiula getting injured.

What about adding a winger? It’s very early and there are no sellers, but if teams like Arizona, Carolina and Toronto don’t turn things around, they could move off veteran pieces as rentals as the season grows. I’d still love to see Radim Vrbata on this hockey club.

If the Oilers stay in the race through, say, Christmas time, I could see them easily adding a veteran top-nine presence to help turn this rig north. One of the things Peter Chiarelli did yearly in Boston when he thought his team could make the playoffs was add veteran depth pieces. I wouldn’t be shocked if that were the case here if the Oilers proved to him they could make the dance.