One month ago the season began with that warm and fuzzy feeling known as hope. About 30 days and a 4-8-0 record later, you can feel that fuzzy feeling fade away for the usual cold, hard and helpless feeling of reality. It’s starting to settle in again in Oil Country.
The Oilers have been handed two heart breaking defeats, one to the LA Kings and another to the Calgary Flames. The NHL took away two clear goals from them, and robbed them of at least two points in the process. Those losses also came with gut wrenching plays, mainly Cam Talbot on Saturday who provided us with the worst goal against on the season in the whole league.
A lot of people are currently okay with the 4-8-0 start. The Pacific division is bad and even after a tough go, the Oilers are still only three points out of a playoff spot. Unfortunately, I am not one of those who is okay with the start of the season. Why? I’ve noticed some VERY disturbing trends.
Bottom Six:
The Oilers might have the worst bottom six forward group in the NHL right now. Their top two lines have been producing offensively and held their own possession wise, but lines three and four have been below replacement level. Not only are they getting crushed possession wise, they aren’t doing any scoring right now.
The numbers say it’s bad, Matt Henderson of OilersNation put together a very good piece outlining that here. Not only is this the case, but the eye test is failed by this group as well. They have been absolutely awful for the Oilers this season.
Will it get better? When Matt Hendricks and Jordan Eberle return it should, but the question is how much better will it get? Anton Lander needs to play better hockey, same with Teddy Purcell and Mark Letestu. While getting guys back will help, it’s also true that players we counted on to perform this year have not been good. That’s an issue.
The Defense:
Edmonton’s defense has been just as bad as last season, and that’s a huge problem. Andrew Ference has played far too often this season, while Eric Gryba is playing too much. Gryba is a decent defender, but he’s incapable of moving the puck and is prone to making key mistakes.
Andrej Sekera is still adapting, but he has not been as good as he needs to be, in fact I’d argue it isn’t close right now. Mark Fayne’s Corsi numbers suggest he’s been pretty good this season, but the eye test shows many crucial mistakes and he just isn’t quick enough to have success in the west. That’s a major, major issue.
Edmonton’s best defenders this season? Probably Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse. That’s scary considering neither has played a full NHL season. Sure, it looks great for the future, but eventually the future needs to be now. Sekera needs to play better and Peter Chiarelli needs to throw this unit a life boat, go get someone who can play please.
Coaching:
I’m not going to blame Todd McLellan for the first 12 games of the season. He’s a veteran coach with a real system and a history of winning. He’s exactly what this team needs and I believe he needs to be given at least two seasons before we can judge his body of work.
That said, he has done somethings early that have made me scratch my head. Deployment and player usage in terms of ice time are the big two things for me.
Why is Eric Gryba, a guy that is, at best, a number five defender in the NHL, playing a top-four role on this team? Why has Andrew Ference played as much as he has and as often as he has?
What about match-ups? Why is McLellan just running four lines and not trying for the match-up? The McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins lines should have been matched up with the Hamilton-Engelland pairing on Saturday night, but they only got about a minute a piece against them. That’s a problem.
The Oilers owe it to themselves, to their fans, to dress the best lineup each night and to give themselves the best chance to win. To be honest, I don’t think they have done that to this point.
So What Now:
The Oilers will likely hold out for the month of November before making any kind of changes to the roster. Peter Chiarelli, maybe rightfully so, wants to see what he has when this team is fully healthy. Here’s the thing however, this team, especially the bottom six and defense, isn’t good enough even when healthy.
If the team wants this to be a development year, then so be it, but if the Oilers are serious about winning some games and making a push in the standings this year, they’d better getting moving to fix some holes on this roster.
Come on Peter, catch this team now, the Oilers are falling.
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