Before the 2016-17 season began, I wrote a post listing several bold predictions about the Oilers. I also added an update in December. Now that the season has come to an end, I present to you a final look back at my predictions.
1. Jordan Eberle will lead the Oilers in goal scoring. As Grover would say, I feel so embarrassed! Actually, this prediction doesn’t look quite as bad as it did earlier in the season. With his hat trick on Sunday evening, Eberle finished with 20 goals. Not bad considering how his season began. I had thought that Eberle would be on McDavid’s wing all season and would have countless opportunities to score, but Eberle had terrible luck at the beginning of the season and didn’t last too long on the first line. And it was actually McDavid who ended up leading the Oilers’ in scoring goals (30).
2. Connor McDavid will win the Art Ross Trophy with 93 points. This is one trophy that the PWA won’t be able to keep from the Oilers. McDavid will indeed win the Art Ross, finishing the season with 100 points. Judging from McDavid’s reaction after putting up his one hundredth point, this milestone was a big deal to him.
3. Matt Hendricks will not finish the season as an Oiler. If the Oilers had been sellers at the trade deadline, maybe Hendricks would have been traded. We’ll see how much action he gets in the playoffs. Personally, I’d like to see Anton Slepyshev play in place of Hendricks, but I’m guessing that Todd McLellan will want the veteran’s grit in the Oilers’ lineup.
4. Leon Draisaitl will be a top 20 NHL scorer. Not only was Draisaitl a top 20 scorer, he was a top 10 scorer! His 77 points were the eighth most in the league. While some Oiler fans are fretting over the bonus money Draisaitl earned, I’m happy for him. But from now on, maybe the Oilers shouldn’t put anyone on McDavid’s line who is able to earn bonus money or is playing in the final year of a contract.
5. Nail Yakupov will not score 15 goals. Thus the draft pick acquired from the Blues will remain in the third round, not the second. Yakupov scored only 3 goals, meaning that the Oilers will receive a third round pick from the Blues, not a second rounder.
6. Jesse Puljujarvi will score 10 powerplay goals for the Oilers. Uh, nope. Didn’t happen. Not even close. The Finnish rookie scored only 1 goal for the Oilers, though it was a powerplay goal. Puljujarvi did score 5 powerplay goals for the Condors, so I wasn’t too far off, right? Wrong? Yeah, bad prediction.
7. Anton Slepyshev will play at least 40 games for the Oilers. Bingo! Slepyshev appeared in 41 games.
8. Tyler Pitlick will be out with an injury before the first weekend of the season. This prediction was meant to be a joke, but it turned out to be not very funny. Pitlick played well, scoring 8 goals, but unfortunately he lasted only 31 games.
9. A popular MSM narrative will be that the Oilers won the Taylor Hall–Adam Larsson trade. I don’t think this actually happened, though Oiler fans have not yet stopped arguing about the trade.
10. The Oilers’ goal differential will be between -5 and +5. The Oilers’ goal differential in 2015-16 was -42. I thought I was being extremely bold by predicting a goal differential of +5 for this season. But the Oilers blew that prediction out of the water by posting an incredible +35! That was sixth best in the entire NHL!
11. The Oilers will increase their point total by 16, finishing with 86 points. However, they will miss the playoffs once again, getting eliminated in the final week of the season. Thankfully I was wrong. The Oilers did not miss the playoffs, and they earned 17 more points that I predicted.
12. The Oilers will finish ahead of both the Flames and the Canucks. In fact, Vancouver will finish dead last. Yes! The Oilers finished 9 points ahead of the Flames and 34 points ahead of the Canucks. Did Vancouver finish dead last? No, but second last place is good enough for me.
The Oilers exceeded expectations. The 2016-17 was a season Oiler fans could finally be proud of. Let’s hope they continue to exceed expectations in the playoffs.
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