You can talk about statistics and analytics in hockey all you want, and as important as they are, unfortunately, they don’t clearly reflect the closeness of a team. When I think of the inconsistent play of the Edmonton Oilers this season, and especially that of goaltender Stuart Skinner, I think of Skinner’s close friendship with players such as Vincent Desharnais, who played with Skinner in the minors with the Bakersfield Condors of the American Hockey League.
Skinner literally grew up with a group from Bakersfield including Desharnais, Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway and all were replaced in the offseason by older players such as Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner. Remember the pure joy that Skinner and Desharnais displayed after an Oilers win with their “High 5” routine? That’s all ancient history, and I wonder who Skinner’s closest confidant on the team is now that Desharnais is playing for the Vancouver Canucks.
Team bonding matters, folks. It always makes its appearance on the ice no matter how many teams try to deny they might have issues in the dressing room. Whether you play on a bantam team, in junior or even senior hockey, if you tinker with the roster too much like a mad scientist, you can screw things up.
NHL Players Are Professionals and Also Human
NHL players get paid millions to do a job that many of us can only dream about. When you play in a market such as Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, your every move is monitored closely. Players these days can’t even go to the bathroom in their market without someone tweeting something about it. When times are good, it can be a great feeling, but when your team hits rough waters, it seems like everyone and their dog is out to get you.
The Oilers and their fans are looking under every rock to try and figure out why this team isn’t living up to expectations in the 2024-25 NHL season. One of the biggest reasons could be that this team has not bonded, and they’re playing like a group of individuals rather than a well-oiled machine. When the Oilers were marching to the Stanley Cup Final last season, they had a good balance of veterans and youth, experience and speed. Now they seem old and slow, and on a few nights this season, they seem lost. Could it be that they went too far in altering team chemistry this offseason?
Great Teams Have Great Chemistry
Go back into NHL history a bit and take a look at the core rosters of teams that have won multiple Stanley Cups. The Oilers of the ‘80s and early ‘90s had a core group similar in age who grew up with each other – guys like Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Grant Fuhr, Paul Coffey, Glenn Anderson and Jari Kurri. Move ahead a few decades and look at the Pittsburgh Penguins with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Marc Andre-Fleury, or the Tampa Bay Lightning led by Andrei Vasilevskiy, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman and Steven Stamkos.
All these great teams had a core group similar in age, who literally grew up together, and formed a bond that will be there well after they retire. I worry that the Oilers haven’t found the same chemistry as these great teams. You can tell that Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Zach Hyman are close. But what about Jeff Skinner or Arvidsson? Skinner, who has been counted on to be the number-one sniper his whole career, has now taken a back seat to McDavid and Draisaitl, and his lack of time on the power play could very well be one of the main reasons he hasn’t racked up the points fans are used to seeing from him.
Do the Oilers Have Enough Time to Make an Impact This Season?
Can Oilers general manager and head chemist Stan Bowman bring in the right talent and character to help the Oilers this season? If you’re an Oilers fan, you better hope so. You know that forward Evander Kane will be back this spring, and there will be changes to the Oilers blueline. Will players such as Stuart and Jeff Skinner still be with the team? Hard to say. Bowman has no history with Stuart Skinner, and he might have a different view of the goaltender than previous Oilers executives.
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Bowman’s next few moves will be crucial to the future of the franchise. Either he brings in the right guys who fit in with the core group and perform well on the ice, or he swings and misses like others in the business. That remains to be seen. This is a team that is super talented on paper, and shouldn’t be counted out this early in the season. However, do they have enough time to bond and start playing like a team? A worried fanbase awaits Bowman’s next few moves and the method behind his madness. He’ll either hit a home run and go down swinging; there is no in-between on this one.
