The Stretch

It is upon us.

The Edmonton Oilers are entering the final few months of the NHL season in prime position to make the postseason. This occurrence, which last happened in the spring of 2006, is a rather new experience for the city of Edmonton. The decade of futility has taken its toll on the fan-base as pessimism still rears its ugly head, even with the team playing above and beyond expectations. However, the reality of the situation is that the Edmonton Oilers are currently in a playoff spot at the beginning of March.

As the NHL Trade Deadline is ready to come and go tomorrow afternoon, the Oilers currently find themselves occupying the 2nd place spot in the Pacific Division. They possess a solid 74pts on the year and have received fantastic performances from the likes of Cam Talbot, Connor McDavid, and Leon Draisaitl to get them up to 33 wins thus far. To contrast, the team only had 31 wins during their entire 2015/16 campaign.

So, with the team breaking expectations and turning heads as the league enters the 2017 NHL Trade Deadline, the question of whether the Oilers can clinch that long-awaited playoff spot has been asked more and more each day. As mentioned, the Oilers currently hold the 2nd spot in the Pacific Division. They are tied with the Anaheim Ducks at 74pts and trail the San Jose Sharks by 5pts for the division lead. Yet, despite this desirable position, a threat still persists, and it comes from outside of the division leaders and in the form of the Calgary Flames.

It seems as though the Flames are not ready to give Oil Country its time in the sun, as they only trail the Oilers by 4pts. This is a margin just small enough to get the fanbase worried about the possibility of their provincial rivals toppling the most successful Oilers season in recent memory. While the Flames have been firing on all cylinders lately, collecting 9pts out of a possible 10 in their most recent road trip, the Oilers have cooled off significantly. Since the NHL All Star break the Oilers are 5-7-0 and have struggled with secondary scoring.

So, with this being the case, I decided to take a look at how the Oilers stack up as they officially enter the stretch.

Breaking It Down

When you breakdown the remainder of the Oilers schedule you’ll get something that looks a little like this:

Home games: 13

Away games: 6

10 games against division rivals:

3 vs. LA — The two teams have split the two meetings thus far, Edmonton won the latest by a score of 3-1.

2 vs. SJ — San Jose has looked dominant, but Oilers hold a respectable 1-1-1 record against the division leaders.

3 vs. VAN — A team that isn’t in the playoff picture but a team that Edmonton has struggled with…hold a 1-0-1 record against the Canucks.

2 vs. ANA — The Oilers are currently tied with Anaheim with 74pts, they hold a 2-1 edge on the Ducks so far in the season series.

8 games against teams they have already beaten (excluding division rivals):

1 vs. STL — The Oilers are 2-0-o against the Blues this season…they will try to sweep the season series tonight.

1 vs. DET — Detroit is poised to miss the playoffs for the first time in 24(!) seasons, and the Oilers could take advantage of a depleted Wings team.

1 vs. NYI — It took the Oilers a shootout to claim victory against the Islanders this past November, they’ll be in tough with the Isles here.

1 vs. MTL — The Oilers just recently won a 1-0 affair with the Canadiens earlier this month.

1 vs. DAL — In two meetings the Oilers have split the season series 1-1…but they looked very dominant in a 5-2 win all the way back in November

1 vs. BOS — Patrick Maroon potted his first career hat-trick against the Bruins in a 4-3 victory on January 5th

2 vs. COL — The NHLs worst team should be two games that the Oilers win with no excuses…they are 1-0-0 against the Avs this season.

That leaves one more game against the Penguins…a team they failed to defeat this season.

Analysis:

The Oilers will have a very favourable schedule during the month of March. Of the 13 games slated to be played in March, only two of them will be played on the road. While the Oilers have been slightly better on the road this season, it will be nice for the team to get a large string of games at the newly minted Rogers Place. If Edmonton wants to be a playoff team, they will have to embrace the idea of home-ice advantage in the month of March.

Turning the page over to the quality of competition that the team will face, the good news is that the Oilers have beaten every team on the upcoming schedule, with the exception of the Pittsburgh Penguins. As evidenced in the above breakdown, the Oilers have a good mixture of division foes and weaker teams on tap to finish the season

When it comes to some of the weaker teams on the list, that of Colorado, Vancouver, and Detroit, the Oilers will have to have a killer instinct, as these points will be critical. They play a grand total of 6 games against these bottom feeding teams, and you can bet that every single one of them should be winnable. If the Oilers can escape these 6 games with a record resembling something like 4-1-1 then I would consider that a serious success. This kind of record would boost our point total to 83.

We then make our way into the 4pt games against the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks. These are the games that will make or break the Oilers playoff positioning. Even with the Sharks ahead in the standings at the present, only 5pts separate them from the Oilers. They will have 2 games against the Sharks, one at home and one on the road, and if the Oilers could split these games, picking up 3pts in a best case scenario, we get that point total to a 86.

Add two more to the total if Edmonton can pick up one win against the Ducks. 88.

Alright, so that is the best case scenario for the Oilers after 10 of their last 19.

Assuming the playoff cutoff is somewhere near the 94pt range…the Oilers could make the postseason with the record of at least 3-5-1 in the remaining nine games.

Conclusion:

So to recap, this scenario suggests that if the Oilers put up a 9-8-2 record in the final 19 games…they SHOULD make the playoffs. This would give the Oilers a 42-30-10 record. This is certainly an achievable record for this much improved Edmonton Oilers team

Thanks For Reading!

Find me on Twitter @PrestonKixFM

How do you think the Oilers stack up as they enter the stretch?

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