Since Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey came in and changed the structure of the team, it’s been like night and day for the Edmonton Oilers’ defence. The Vegas Golden Knights play a zone defence, so former head coach Jay Woodcroft and company thought that the Oilers should change over to that way of playing in their own end. That didn’t work, the Oilers started off very poorly in their own end, impacting the defensive numbers, and ended going back to the way they had played before that, man on man. By then it was too late, and Woodcroft and Dave Manson were replaced behind the bench.
Knoblauch coached a zone defence and knows exactly how to teach it, most recently for the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League (AHL). He implemented it right away, and the Oilers have gone on win streaks of eight games and 14 games (and counting) giving him 24 wins and six losses in his first 30 games as an NHL head coach. This key coaching change has made the Oilers much better in a lot of ways, especially in defending, keeping shots to the outside, and breaking the puck out effectively. We’ve seen so many individuals, lines, and pairings all succeeding compared to the rest of the league in terms of controlling the play, getting chances, and limiting chances, but here’s a look at the Oilers’ defensive pairings in particular and what each have done this season.
The Oilers’ three main defence pairings are Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard, Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci, and Vincent Desharnais and Brett Kulak. While the analytics for all three are above average, two of them stand out in comparison to the league, even after the poor start to the season: the second pairing of Ekholm and Bouchard and the third pairing of Desharnais and Kulak.
Oilers’ Elite Defence Pairings Analytically
Nurse and Ceci are considered an above-average duo, yet they rank third of the three pairings in most analytics, which shows just how impressive the other two are.
This season, 94 pairings have played at least 200 minutes together at five-on-five (which is enough of a sample size that the numbers aren’t skewed), and Ekholm and Bouchard have the best goals for percentage (GF%) at 64.1% and Desharnais and Kulak are second at 60.8% (from “Vincent Desharnais’ continuing emergence a major positive for Oilers”, Edmonton Journal, Jan. 23, 2024). Even when the Oilers were losing games at the start of the season, these pairings were still in the right position doing the right thing at both ends of the ice. It was a matter of the team not scoring goals and the goalies letting in weak goals when the defenders were on the ice.
Expected goals against per 60 minutes (xGA/60) identifies which pairings do well at of reducing chances against. Among the 94 pairings, Desharnais and Kulak have the second-best xGA/60 at 1.75. Ekholm and Bouchard don’t rank first this time, but they are in the top 10 with 2.02, impressive considering they have the most expected goals for (xGF) in the league (38). The next closest is 33.1 for Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns of the Carolina Hurricanes.
New Defence Partner for Nurse
These stats — and the dominance of the second and third pairings — are indications of why it’s so important for the team to find an upgrade to Ceci to play alongside Nurse for a Stanley Cup run. Yes, the Nurse/Ceci pairing is above average, but on a team that is dominating right now, above average isn’t good enough. The excuse of playing against the hardest matchups isn’t valid, since Ekholm and Bouchard play just as often against top competition and have started 27 more draws in the defensive zone at five-on-five than Nurse and Ceci.
Other than GF%, Nurse and Ceci rank third among the three Oilers’ defensive pairings in all the important stats, such as Corsi For percentage, Fenwick For percentage, shots for percentage, expected goals for percentage, scoring chances for percentage, and high-danger chances for percentage. This is all while the Nurse/Ceci pairing has the highest on-ice shooting percentage and on-ice save percentage of the three pairings at five-on-five, therefore resulting in the highest PDO (shooting percentage plus save percentage).
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The Oilers may be able to reach their goal without replacing Ceci on the top pairing, but it won’t be easy, especially since this duo gets exposed and outplayed more often than the other two. There isn’t much left to do, but helping Nurse — who will be with the Oilers for many more years — should make all three pairings dominant and ensure there’s no weak spot on the back end.
