The Edmonton Oilers’ next game comes against the last-place San Jose Sharks on Nov. 9. Unfortunately, this is no lock for the Oilers who have just two wins in 11 games and have struggled to finish out games for various reasons. On the other side, the Sharks finally got their first win of the season in their 12th game against the Philadelphia Flyers. Many were worried that the chips were lining up perfectly for the Oilers to hit absolute rock bottom and hand the Sharks their first win in the 13th game of the season.
This doesn’t negate the Oilers from hitting rock bottom in this game, though, as they came into this season as one of the Stanley Cup favourites and just can’t get the job done. While almost every other team has dominated the Sharks, the Oilers have to follow suit and show some good signs that they can get the season back on track. It may be damning if they can’t knock off the Sharks.
The Oilers are fighting for their season already, and although they regularly have at least one of these stretches of 10 games where they just can’t seem to win, it has come early this season and is concerning. It’s not easy to defeat any team in the NHL, so the Oilers will have to continue to do the good things they have shown in their game and clean up other parts of their game. These are the four areas the Oilers must show dominance and improvement against the Sharks to get back in the win column.
Dominate on the Scoresheet
The Oilers are known as an offensive team and have usually been able to outscore their problems. That hasn’t been the case this season despite all of the good looks and expected goals. Both wins the Oilers got this season, they’ve scored at least five goals. In every other game where they’ve scored four or fewer, they’ve lost.
Last season, the Oilers led the league in goals and power-play percentage. Through 11 games this season, they rank 26th in goals per game with 2.64 and ninth on the power play with 25.6 percent. It also doesn’t help that they rank second last in the league in goals against per game with 4.27. But who is worse than them in all three areas? The Sharks.
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San Jose has had an absolutely horrible start to the season, with a 1-10-1 record. They’ve scored 14 goals in 12 games and allowed 4.58 goals against per game. Their goal differential is minus-42 already, and allowed 10 goals against in back-to-back games. If there was ever a game to get the Oilers back into the season, it is this one. They need shots to start going in, and they have against the Sharks all season. The Oilers also need shots to be stopped, and the Sharks have not been able to score. The Sharks have only scored two goals in a game three times and only three goals once. To get confidence in their ability, both bridges have to break for the Oilers, and the effort has to turn into success.
Continue the High Shot Volume & Chances
In over 1/3rd of the games this season, the Oilers have recorded at least 40 shots on goal. In every one of those four games, the Oilers lost. Even if the team hasn’t reached 40 shots in a game, they have dominated in the opponents’ end for long periods of time, even up to a full period of play, and rarely had anything to show for it.
The Oilers have made multiple backup goaltenders look like Vezina Trophy candidates this season already, including Jonathan Quick, Casey DeSmith, and Scott Wedgewood. While shooting a lot should eventually result in some goals, the shots have to be from higher danger areas. The Oilers have the third-most high-danger scoring chances with 130 and one of the lowest success rates, scoring only eight times and ranking 26th in high-danger goals (from “Lowetide: 6 ways the Edmonton Oilers can improve in November”, The Athletic, Nov. 6, 2023).
The Oilers are snake-bitten offensively, and all of the analytics show that they dominate much more of the play and should be getting many more goals than what has gone in. That could change against a team that is just plain bad this season in the Sharks.
Oilers Must Get a Save
As consistently as the Oilers haven’t been able to convert their scoring chances when they should, the goalies haven’t been able to make a save. The Oilers’ goaltending has the worst save percentage in the NHL, even worse than the Sharks. Every odd-man rush against the Oilers seems to find its way into the back of the net. Many of those shots need to be saved as well. If some of them were, it may mean more than just stopping a goal against.
Related: Oilers’ Calvin Pickard Can Be This Season’s Pheonix Copley
The Oilers have had very few odd-man rushes for this season. Why do you think that is? A lot of the time when a chance is missed at one end of the ice, the other team gets an opportunity going the other way on a fast break. An odd-man rush of a 3-on-2 or a 2-on-1 means there are more players from the defending team up the ice. If a save is made or the team on the odd man rush misses the net, the play usually turns and goes the other way quickly. The Oilers haven’t been able to make that save more often than not, so they not only get scored on, but they don’t get the chance to score on a good chance themselves.
Saves can be a momentum builder or a momentum killer. The other team seems to gain momentum when the Oilers have sustained pressure and can’t score, but then Edmonton immediately loses that momentum when they can’t get a save. Neither of the goalies that the Oilers have played this season, Jack Campbell or Stuart Skinner, have been able to make a timely save.
Take the last game against the Vancouver Canucks on Nov. 6, for example. The Oilers were down 2-1 while outshooting the Canucks 19-3. That encompasses the shooting and save percentage this season. If the Oilers would have been able to get a few saves in the first period, they wouldn’t have let the Canucks back into the game. Calvin Pickard, the goalie called up in place of Campbell, has a .939 save percentage in the American Hockey League (AHL) this season in four games. It is the AHL, but it is still professional hockey, and he has proven he can make a save this season and throughout his career when given a chance. The Oilers will need that.
Backchecking & Limit Chances Against
The Oilers’ players have been called out for not backchecking hard enough this season, and there are certain players who it has been more noticeable from like Evan Bouchard (from “Evan Bouchard knows he’s struggling but says it ‘will get better'”, Edmonton Journal, Oct. 26, 2023). While the team has started to clean that up as a whole, it has gotten to the point where many are over-backchecking and leaving the high man open for an equally opportune chance.
Mistakes are what is killing the Oilers so far this season. Backchecking properly will limit some of those chances, but the play on their own end is equally, as important. The Oilers have dominated Corsi, Fenwick, and scoring chances this season, but have nothing to show for it. The team can’t lose coverage, needs a save, and needs some execution in the offensive zone. The opportunity awaits for the Oilers to turn things around before it’s too late, and it starts with a historically bad Sharks team. We will see how this plays out.
