There was an NHL game at the Bell Centre in downtown Montreal on Monday (Nov. 18). On one side was a team that went to the Stanley Cup Final last postseason and is considered a favourite to win the championship in 2025. On the other side was a team in the thralls of a rebuild and entered the game with the second-fewest points in the NHL this season.
Based on what unfolded, any reasonable observer would assume it’s the Montreal Canadiens who are Cup contenders, and the Edmonton Oilers who are cellar dwellers. The opposite is true, of course, but it sure didn’t look that way at the Bell Centre, where the home team blanked the Oilers 3-0.
Edmonton came out flat, was outworked, outmuscled, and flat-out outplayed by the Habs who were most deserving of their shutout victory.
With the loss, the Oilers’ record drops to 9-8-2 and they remain fifth place in the Pacific Division with 20 points. If the Stanley Cup Playoffs started today, the Oilers would be sitting at home.
For a second consecutive year, the Oilers have significantly underperformed through the first several weeks of the season, and that prompts a very fair and hard question: “Why are they in this place again?”
Oilers’ Spot in Standings Covers Up Serious Concerns
Granted, captain Connor McDavid and the Oilers are in nowhere near the dire straits that they found themselves in last season: After 19 games in 2023-24, Edmonton had 13 points from a record of 6-12-1 and sat eight points out of a playoff spot; after 19 games in 2024-25, the Oilers are only one spot below the wild card cutline.
So yes, Edmonton has a better record and is higher up in the standings than at this same juncture a year ago, when the Oilers had one of the worst starts in the franchise’s lengthy history. But a quick glance at some other stats raises serious concerns.
Oilers’ Stats Are Similar to Those of One Year Ago
To an extent, the Oilers are being propped up by overtime, where they have already won four times and picked up another two points via the overtime loss (OTL). Through 19 games this season, Edmonton has won only five times in regulation, which is the exact number of regulation wins the Oilers had through 19 games in 2023-24.
The Oilers have one of the league’s best winning percentages (.667) in games decided by two or fewer goals, and while it’s great they’re able to win the close ones, that masks the fact that Edmonton has barely been competitive in over a third of their games. Already, the Oilers have lost by three goals a whopping seven times, which is tied for the league-high so far this season and is the exact number of three-plus goal losses that they had through 19 games in 2023-24.
This is more reflected in Edmonton’s goal-differential of minus-10, which is second worst among Pacific Division teams and not a whole lot better than one year ago, when the Oilers’ goal-differential through 19 games was minus-14.
And then there are the special teams, which was paramount to Edmonton’s incredible run into and through the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. After Monday’s game in Montreal, the Oilers power-play success rate is 16.3%, while their penalty-kill success rate is 67.4%. Those numbers are actually much worse than one year ago, when they boasted a power-play success rate of 25.0% and a penalty-kill success rate of 76.3% through their first 19 games of 2023-24.
All this harkens back to the question of why is a team that was good enough to reach Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final just five months ago finding itself back in such a sorry state of affairs again? And the answer, at least partially, might be because this team was good enough to reach Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final just five months ago.
Oilers Hope to Follow Path Back to Stanley Cup Final
As is well documented, the Oilers authored a remarkable turnaround last season, climbing from the depths of the Western Conference standings by winning 44 of its final 64 regular season games. From there, they knocked off the Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars in best-of-seven postseason series to capture their first conference championship in 18 years.
Has the knowledge that they can sleepwalk through the first quarter of the season and still be able to get within spitting distance of hockey’s greatest prize lulled the Oilers into a false sense of security? Are they not taking matters as seriously as they should because these players think they’ll just be able to flip the switch again?
The thing is, last season was not a roadmap for success; it was the outlier of all outliers: no team in NHL history had ever come from as far back as the 2023-24 Oilers to reach the Stanley Cup Final.
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Furthermore, this is not entirely the same team as last spring. Forwards Warren Foegele, Dylan Holloway and Ryan McLeod are all with new teams. So too are blueliners Philip Broberg, Cody Ceci, and Vincent Desharnais. Evander Kane is on long-term injured reserve (LTIR). This season’s key additions – forwards Viktor Arvidsson, Vasily Podkolzin, and Jeff Skinner and blueliner Travis Dermott — are contributing very little. And Adam Henrique, Zach Hyman, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who had 96 goals between them during the 2023-24 regular season and then combined to tally 27 more times in the postseason, have a meagre total of six goals so far.
If there is anything the Oilers should glean from last year, it’s to be thankful that despite their subpar play, they are not in nearly as deep of a hole this time. Somehow, Edmonton is only four points out of first place in the Pacific Division. Imagine where they could have been if they had played up to expectations thus far. Imagine where they still can be if they start playing up to expectations from this point forward.
That’s something the Oilers need to figure out and figure out quick. Because the day may come when they need to flip the switch and find they just can’t turn it on. The Oilers are back in action tonight (Nov. 19) when they take on the host Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre.
