Coming into the 2023-24 season, nobody expected the start the Edmonton Oilers had. That is all in the past now, as the team has won 12 games in a row and are 22-6-0 since Kris Knoblauch has taken over as head coach. The horrible start was much more surprising than these long-win streaks the Oilers have gone on. While it is a team game, individuals are underperforming, meeting expectations, and exceeding them all the same.
Before the season, I looked at five Oilers with big expectations coming into this season, as well as three players you should lower your expectations for. Let’s catch up with all of them to see how things have been going compared to what was expected of them before this important season.
Oilers Coming in With High Expectations
Evan Bouchard
Since Evan Bouchard was splitting time between the second and third pairing on the right side until Mattias Ekholm was brought in, Bouchard’s offensive numbers weren’t as expected. As this changed when Ekholm arrived and Bouchard got a full-time role on the power play, he showed his true potential for the Oilers.
This is the first full season in which Bouchard gets to play a top-four role with all of the power-play time on the top unit. He has exceeded expectations, as he already has 11 goals and 42 points in 41 games on the season. He leads the team in ice time by 22 seconds over Darnell Nurse, and Bouchard has also rounded out his game very nicely. There were times when everything that could go wrong defensively was, but he has more than settled into his major role on the team, and it will only get better as the 24-year-old matures.
Connor McDavid
It was going to be very tough to follow up on the performance Connor McDavid had last season when he scored 64 goals and 153 points. Although he has seemingly improved upon his points pace every season in the NHL, it will likely come to an end this season. That is okay, as he is still the best hockey player in the world and making a huge impact for the Oilers despite not leading the NHL by a mile in those areas.
McDavid isn’t shooting as much, which is why he only has 16 goals in 39 games. He was injured near the beginning of the season, and it was apparent he was playing with an injury. Despite that, he is still on pace to crack 120 points this season and is looking as dominant as ever. Even though he may not reach the expectations we had for him, the team has done a solid job around him for the last 25-plus games and has allowed the Oilers to win without needing McDavid to score 3-plus points a night.
Leon Draisaitl
Leon Draisaitl is in a similar boat to McDavid. The power play hasn’t been as effective, so there have been fewer points for Draisaitl. The expectation was at least 50 goals and 125 points, but that was also assuming the power play would click at over 30 percent, and he would have better wingers.
Draisaitl has had Evander Kane on his line for a while, and the analytics show that he is better without him. It forced Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele to step into top-six roles to help Draisaitl. He is on pace for 44 goals and 100 points, which isn’t bad, but not to the level that is expected of him. Unless the power play picks up and the team gets help on the wing for his line, I can see him picking up the scoring pace, but not to the level that was expected. Once again, he has done what he can, and the team is helping around Draisaitl and not forcing him to produce multiple points nightly for the Oilers to win.
Stuart Skinner
There were no expectations for Stuart Skinner last season as a rookie who was supposed to be playing behind Jack Campbell all season. That turned quickly, and Skinner not only started the majority of the games, but he also started every playoff game. He was tired out by the team’s playoff run, and his numbers fell off. What was expected of him this season was to split time with Campbell so that he didn’t get as fatigued by the playoffs and finish with about a .914 save percentage (SV%) as he did last season.
Campbell was demoted early, and Skinner has been worked to the brim this season. After a very tough start overall and for the goalies, Skinner has settled in very nicely and looks like a top-10 starter in the NHL. His .904 SV% on the season might be misleading now since he has gone 16-2-0 with a .930 SV% and two shutouts in his past 18 games. This isn’t a short stretch of games either. Considering what Skinner has done in giving the Oilers a chance to win every game since the end of November, I think he’s passing expectations on the season (from “Stuart Skinner establishing himself as a top goaltender in the NHL”, Edmonton Journal, Jan. 17, 2024).
Jack Campbell
Campbell has everyone fooled that his very impressive preseason and his strong postseason appearances were going to get him on the right track in Edmonton. That wasn’t the case, as he was pulled in the first game of the season and soon sent down to the American Hockey League (AHL), where he has yet to return.
The expectation was that he could at least post a .900 SV%, which would give the Oilers a chance to win on some nights. Instead, Campbell went 1-4-0 with a .873 SV% and 4.50 goals against average (GAA) and even struggled in the AHL when he first got there. While he has been better as of late, nobody expected Campbell to be so bad a second season in a row and force the team to take drastic actions and demote him. He has failed miserably to reach expectations.
Oilers You Needed to Lower Expectations For
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored 37 goals and 104 points last season after he had never scored over 28 goals and 69 points in a season before. This might have been the most obvious player on the Oilers to expect less from this season. With 53 points scored on the power play, it was going to be very difficult for him to follow up that production and that massive career year.
Nugent-Hopkins is on pace for 22 goals and 78 points, which is still better than the production we should expect from someone being paid $5.125 million AAV (average annual value). He is still a major key to the power play, even though it hasn’t been as dominant as it has in the past. What wasn’t expected of him was to be a part of the most dominant line in the league with McDavid and Zach Hyman. I said you should expect Nugent-Hopkins to land between 70 and 80 points. That is where it is looking like he’ll finish, and that’s still great.
Evander Kane
The excuse that Kane isn’t fully healed from his wrist injury last season can’t be used anymore. Last season, it was rightfully used, as it took time for Kane to get back up to speed and regain his form. He finished with 16 goals and 28 points in 41 games in 2022-23 and was expected to build on that and come back stronger this season.
Through 40 games, Kane has 14 goals and 27 points, while his play forced the Oilers to move him down to the third line. While a near point-per-game pace like his debut half a season with the Oilers is unrealistic since he hasn’t done that throughout his entire career or over a full season, more offence is expected of him. His shooting percentage of 11.5 isn’t bad, but his hockey IQ and decision making is just not where it needs to be to really benefit the top six of the Oilers. Kane is underperforming this season, even from lowered expectations.
Connor Brown
While I came in with more realistic expectations for Connor Brown, I underestimated how much missing 78 games last season would impact his game offensively. Sure, he wasn’t expected to play 18-20 minutes a night with power-play time like he did on the Ottawa Senators, but he was expected to help produce offensively at five-on-five and be a top-six winger.
He failed to reach expectations in a major way, as Brown still hasn’t scored a goal 34 games into the season and has three assists. While his defensive game is as strong as ever, that might have to be enough for a player with a $775,000 cap hit in the first half of a season after a major injury. The Oilers aren’t using him in the top six and aren’t likely to again this season. His role is the third or fourth line in a checking/forechecking role with time on the penalty kill. Even though he didn’t come close to expectations of 40-50 points, he can still be useful to the Oilers. We just have to move past the fact that he will get $3.25 million from the Oilers next season, most of which is going against the cap.
Related: Oilers’ Potential Trades That Can Match the Ekholm Robbery
While not all of the players I covered before the season are reaching expectations, some of the others are picking up the slack, and the Oilers are playing as more of a well-rounded team. McDavid and Draisaitl are still playing like elite players, just not at their regular pace since the tough start to the season. All is good in Edmonton right now in the midst of a long winning streak and having entered the top three in the division. We will see how these players do the rest of the way.
