Articles in Edmonton Oilers

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It was the summer of 2022, and Ken Holland succumbed to the pressure.

His Edmonton Oilers had just suffered through the Mikko Koskinen years, and Mike Smith was ready to retire. Edmonton’s goaltending pipeline consisted of a rookie named Stuart Skinner, and nothing else of NHL pedigree.

The steward of Connor McDavid’s Stanley Cup future, Holland simply had to come back in September with a No. 1 goalie. He owed it to the sport, but at that moment in time, the pickings were slim.

Detroit had snapped up the untested Ville Husso and signed him to a three-year deal with an AAV of $4.75 million. Today, Husso awaits his first season with a save percentage exceeding .896 in Detroit.

The other viable option was the oft-injured Darcy Kuemper, who had rejected Edmonton’s overtures the previous summer. He took his talents to Washington, D.C.

So Holland and Campbell were the last two at the dance. Bedfellows by chance.

At that moment, the Oilers GM had two choices: Overpay and over-term a guy who had briefly found his game in Toronto — but had serious question marks regarding his mental game. Or walk away and temporarily solve his issues in the trade market.

Choose the latter and fail, and he would have been crushed by Oilers fans. They had suffered through the Three Metres of Koskinen, and borne nervous witness to the puck-handling foibles of an ageing Smith.

Now they wanted a true No. 1, and it was Holland’s job to provide. To those who much is given, the old saying goes, much is expected.

Holland jumped to his fatal mistake, choosing Campbell. And today, that chicken roosts on the National Hockey League’s waiver wire.

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from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

This in from former NHL referee Tim Peel, now a hockey commentator on the Snipes and Stripes podcast with former Blackhawks star Jeremy Roenick, his viral and provocative suggestion that the Edmonton Oilers should fire Jay Woodcroft and hire Joel Quenneville as coach.

Peel’s suggestion is, of course, setting hair on fire. It’s gone viral on social media, just as most wild-eyed things do. I’m not going to dig into Quenneville’s case, partly because I think his hiring is a non-starter in Edmonton, but mainly because I’m surprised to see fans and pundits so quickly abandon Jay Woodcroft.

Yes, the Oilers now have the second worst record in the NHL. But talk of axing Woodcroft has escalated rapidly? But to what end? What good will it do? Is it not far more prudent to allow a successful coach like Woodcroft and his successful players some time and space to work their way out of this? Ten more games at least?

We’re going to hear plenty such talk “Fire Woodcroft” in days to come, with plenty of names mentioned as possible replacements for Woodcroft. That talk will only end when Woodcroft gets this team winning again. But I expect that will happen.

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The consensus pick as the eventual Stanley Cup champion by predictors across the National Hockey League only a month ago, absolutely nobody saw what is unfolding here in Edmonton.

The Oilers lost again on Saturday, a dispirited, soft and defenceless 5-2 loss to Nashville, and sit at 2-7-1 after 10 games of the 2023-24 season.

A playoff miss is very much in the cards, and as such, everything is on the table in Edmonton. That includes firing head coach Jay Woodcroft, whose non-competitive, lackadaisical team looks exactly like the one that got Dave Tippett fired, and Todd McLellan before him.

“I thought we lost a lot of puck battles today. Didn't like seeing that,” assessed Woodcroft after the game. “We gave up a couple goals that were specifically right at the net. Not a good sign for us. That's an area that we have to control a lot better.”

Those two goals comprised two-thirds of a Ryan O’Reilly hat trick, as he twice out-muscled Edmonton’s top defenceman, Darnell Nurse. It was a metaphor for a team whose best players haven’t been their best players at all, and on Saturday, O’Reilly took Nurse to school.

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Game highlights are below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

Boy, oh boy. Could this have been a night to remember.

Sam Gagner — “Poppa Oiler” — rolled back into town and scored twice. Edmonton forged a wild comeback with 50 shots on goal. A victory at home, and the first back-to-back wins of the year.

What a story!

Instead, it was the same old story: a defensively derelict team made enough egregious errors to give up their usual four, and the Edmonton Oilers lost again — this time by a 4-3 count against the Dallas Stars.

“We just made too many boo-boos tonight. Again,” said Evander Kane, who continues to outplay Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl here in Edmonton. “Three of their goals are odd-man rushes, and they end up in the back of our net every time. We can’t expect to score four, five goals every night. It’s just not realistic.”

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Below are the game highlights.

Calgary vs. Edmonton outdoors at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.

Puck drops just after 7pm ET and is on TBS and stream on MAX. In Canada watch on Sportsnet and TVA Sports.

Feel free to discuss the game.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

There is no heartbeat, no connective tissues binding a team that skates back and forth with the personal familiarity of rush hour in Manhattan.

There is no bite, zero cohesiveness and even less swagger. They are expectant of bad fortune, devoid of momentum. Every time a line hops over the boards, it’s a restart, not a continuation of work that began with the previous group.

Their game is hope, not expectation. The losing starts with common puck battles, moves on to line matchups, and ends on the scoreboard, with a 3-0 New York Rangers victory that easily could have been three or four goals worse.

“We’ve got to be better,” said Darnell Nurse, of the 1-5-1 Edmonton Oilers. “Everyone just look in the mirror at this point, and we’ve got to be a whole lot (expletive) better.”

Not even an analytics wizard could save this Oilers team right now, beaten 14-8 on high-danger chances by the Rangers. No numerical hocus pocus could paint a picture that didn’t look as bad as the one that 17,939 people — including nearly 100 alumni, in town for Doug Weight and Charlie Huddy’s Oilers Hall of Fame inductions, plus Sunday’s Heritage Classic — bore horrific witness to.

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Game highlights are below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

So many of the things the Edmonton Oilers wanted to see came to fruition Tuesday night in St. Paul. But in the end, it was the same old thing for these same old Oilers, who managed to score four goals on the road.

The problem was, so poor was Edmonton’s defensive game that they needed four more to win, in a disturbing 7-4 loss to the Minnesota Wild.

Soft, derelict defensively, and manhandled in front of their own goal, the Oilers entered the third period with a 3-2 lead — then folded up like a cardboard box in a rain storm. They resembled a group that does not have the first clue how to defend, a horrendous display by a team that entered the season with a mantra of “Cup or bust.”

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Eric Francis also of Sportsnet on the 3-1 Calgary home loss to the Rangers,

via TSN's YouTube page,

The Oilers announced that captain Connor McDavid will miss one-to-two weeks after he suffered an upper-body injury in Edmonton's overtime loss to the Jets on Saturday. Ryan Rishaug joins SC with Jay Onrait to discuss.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The Edmonton Oilers are sick. And now, Connor McDavid is, to some degree, injured.

Trailing Vegas by nine points in the Pacific Division — and it’s not even November yet — the Edmonton Oilers are five games into the season and still searching for their first third period goal.

They scored 100 of those last season, fifth best in the NHL. Today, after a 1-3-1 start punctuated by a 3-2 overtime loss on home ice Saturday, they’d kill to be ranked fifth at anything — from goals scored, to power play, to penalty kill, to goals allowed.

“We are just too up and down. Not consistent enough right now,” lamented Leon Draisaitl. “It feels like every mistake we make ends up in the back of our net. We have lots of things to fix.”

The mistake Draisaitl made in OT most certainly ended up in the back of his team’s net, as the veteran centre let his man (Mark Scheifele) get away, and the Jets sniper tapped in the game-winner with Drasiaitl in his wake.

“There was a little mistake there by me,” he admitted after the game.

continued which includes this on McDavid...

It appeared to be muscular more than anything as I watched the play,” said Jay Woodcroft, who like all coaches do, claimed to have little knowledge of his franchise player’s injury. “I thought it was more him coming up the ice and just something felt off for him. That’s what it looked like from the bench but I’ve got to re-watch the tape.”

Game highlights are below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

Cup or bust?

Pfffft!

The Edmonton Oilers, absolutely outworked once again by a team with far more passion for the game last night in Philadelphia, will have to raise their level to get to “bust.”

The Oilers were whipped 4-1 by a largely no-name Flyers team that may not come within 10 points of a playoff spot this season, but is off to a 3-1 start because the Flyers know they have to earn everything they’ll get.

Flyers head coach John Tortorella is squeezing every possible drop out of the lime here in Philly, while his counterpart Jay Woodcroft has an early season lemon — and hasn’t got an ounce of juice as of yet.

“We simply just got outworked. They wanted it more than us, and can't win a game if you don't want it,” said Edmonton winger Warren Foegele, perhaps Edmonton’s best forward through four games. “We're just not clean. We're not quick. When we are quick, we're a dangerous team. And right now we're not.

“We need everyone on the rope. Tonight we weren’t.”

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No words.

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

The Vancouver Canucks will need a new mantra. They can’t say that it’s “only one game” because now it’s two.

The team got 37 saves from Casey DeSmith in the backup goalie’s first start for the Canucks, and fellow newcomer Sam Lafferty used his speed and power to score an impressive third-period winner as Vancouver beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Saturday in Alberta to sweep the teams’ season-opening two-game series.

And honestly, even though the Oilers outshot the Canucks 40-16, Saturday’s game was at least as surprising as Wednesday’s 8-1 blowout as Vancouver recovered from an early deficit and stared down Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, on the road, for a second straight game.

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from Mark Spector of Spotsnet,

You can beat up the Edmonton Oilers all you want for an 0-2 start that nobody saw coming.

Despite the fact they allowed just 16 shots on goal Saturday (33 shot attempts in total), or that Casey DeSmith faced 40 shots on net, and another 48 that were blocked or sent wide.

Let’s face it: If Edmonton hadn’t been a no show in their 8-1 opening night loss in Vancouver, this effort would pass by without notice.

Or, as Zach Hyman said, “If you lose two games in the middle of the season it is not the end of the world. You lose two games here and you get all these questions about your defensive game.

“It is not ideal, obviously, to lose the first two games,” he concluded. “But there is no panic.”

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Watch the game highlights below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

The much anticipated season opener turned out to be, as Brett Kulak so eloquently described, “Sh**y.”

An Edmonton Oilers team that vowed to be better defensively was indeed excremental in its own zone.

Jack Campbell had turned it around, until he was left watching from the far end of the bench in his season-opening start, wearing the ball cap of shame.

The best power play in hockey history went one-for-four, while the penalty kill was eviscerated on a three-goal night by the Canucks power play.

And the mighty Oilers began their season with an 8-1 paddling at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks.

You picked who to win the Stanley Cup this season…?

“I saw us lose a ton of battles. Things that normally are hallmarks of our game did not show up. It was a preseason level of intensity, a preseason level of execution,” said head coach Jay Woodcroft. “There are a lot of things wrong with what we just saw out there. You saw it. Our players saw it. The coaches saw it. Our managers saw it. Not good enough.

“We laid an egg.”

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Game highlights are below.

I’ve been very fortunate during my time in Detroit and now in Edmonton, although my last three years in Detroit were beginning to chart a rebuild, but the teams have been good.

That’s kept my focus on winning. It’s fun coming to the rink, trying to win, trying to be a playoff team and trying to go on a playoff run. Trying to be the last team standing.

The last time I was in the Final as a manager was in 2009. The last time I won was in 2008. It feels like a lifetime ago.

So all I’m focused on right now is trying to manage this team and build this team, put together this team the best we can. Then I’ll worry about the future at the appropriate time.

-Ken Holland, GM of the Edmonton Oilers. Thomas Drance of The Athletic has more ($) from a Q & with Holland.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It was one of those conversations you have when you walk into your first rink of the fall. With a scout, a trainer, a GM, a player… Maybe the Zamboni guy.

They’re happening all over the National Hockey League this week.

“How was your summer?” “Play some golf?” “What lake are you at again?”

But at some point this one led to how many Edmonton Oilers players had come in early for the Captain’s skates, and from there, how many actually own homes and spend the majority of their summers here in Edmonton. It’s way up from where it used to be.

“It’s not like 10 years ago when guys were all parachuting in here at the last minute,” I said.

“We’ve got men on our team now,” came the reply. “Not boys.”

Men, not boys. We hadn’t looked at it that way.

For years in Edmonton, it’s been a bunch of kids who were supposed to take this team over the top. Along with a collection of older vets who only signed here because the Oilers paid them 20 percent more than the market should have.

But as Connor McDavid noted the other day, times have finally changed:

“There are stages to winning. Stages to every group’s maturity level. Everybody's in their prime,” began McDavid, who engaged wife-to-be Lauren Kyle this summer. “You know, it's not like we're waiting on the first round pick to have an amazing season and come save us, or get us into the playoffs — like it has been at times in Edmonton. Everybody's ready to go.”

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via the NHL Network's YouTube page,

The Edmonton Oilers have two of the league's top players in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but the duo is still chasing their first Stanley Cup. NHL Tonight discusses whether or not it's Stanley Cup or bust for the Oilers.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

If the Edmonton Oilers were a cake, or some fantastic dessert that the recipe book promises will wow your guests, then Ken Holland is the chef, pacing the kitchen floor and glancing through the oven window.

Holland’s ingredients have long since been purchased, measured and folded into the bowl — give or take a one-year deal for Connor Brown, or the icing sugar that is a Brandon Sutter Professional Try Out.

Now he waits, confident in his ability to think on his feet with the right PTO, or a deadline deal come late February that can bring in the defenceman (or goalie?) he’ll need at that point on the season.

"We're going to start with the seven defencemen who finished last year. The goalies are set," Holland said over the phone on Friday afternoon. "Up front, we signed Brandon Sutter this summer. We’ll go to camp, see what they can do, watch the waiver wire …"

Look, if his team resembled a mud pie, you could criticize Holland for a summer that featured only the one major move in Brown — who will see $3.225 million of his $4 million earnings come off the 2024-25 cap in the form of bonus overages. It’s not perfect — especially if Jack Campbell doesn’t find his game this season — but it’s a pretty good roster Holland has built here in Edmonton.

And honestly, just keeping the younger players that a team has to keep has exhausted much of Holland’s ability to make material change in Edmonton, even if he wanted to.

“This is my fifth year here in Edmonton. The cap has gone up $2 million in five years,” he said. “We brought in (Zach) Hyman. We brought in (Evander) Kane. We brought in (Mattias) Ekholm — players who have had a high impact on the team. But it starts to add up.”

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EDMONTON, AB - The Edmonton Oilers have signed defenceman Evan Bouchard to a two-year contract extension with an average annual value (AAV) of $3.9 million.

The 23-year-old has scored 23 goals and 66 assists in 184 career NHL regular season games, as well as seven goals and 19 assists in 28 career Stanley Cup Playoffs appearances.

The Oakville, Ont. native has reached 40 points in each of his past two seasons -- his first two full NHL campaigns -- recording 43 in 81 games in 2021-22, followed by 40 in 82 games last year.

Bouchard led all blueliners in scoring during the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs with 17 points (four goals, 13 assists) in 12 games. The next highest defencemen scorers were Florida's Brandon Montour and Vegas' Shea Theodore, each with 13 points in 21 games.

The right-shot rearguard was selected 10th overall by Edmonton at the 2018 NHL Draft.

from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

This in from the Edmonton Oilers, news that they’ve parted ways with head amateur scout Tyler Wright and brought in formers Avs head scout Rick Pracey to take his place: “The Edmonton Oilers announced Tuesday that Rick Pracey has been named Director of Amateur Scouting. The club also announced that it has mutually parted ways with Tyler Wright....

like this move. I like it a lot, but not for the obvious reason. The obvious reason, as we recently reported here, is that the Edmonton Oilers prospect pool was shut out of the NHL Network’s new list of Top 50 NHL prospects. Not one Oilers prospect was in the Top 50.

But is that Tyler Wright’s fault? Not so much. I’ll suggest it’s too early to judge his work in four seasons as Edmonton’s top scout.

more

One player Jackson represents is Connor McDavid.

25 plays in just over 12 minutes.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It’s Mailbag Friday, and we have some beauties.

So far, folks are trading Darnell Nurse, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Philip Broberg and Jack Campbell. And Kailer Yamamoto....

Let’s get started.

“Hey Mark, is Edmonton ever going to win a Cup with McDavid and Draisaitl? Or are they condemned to constant playoff exits, because the NHL has made it very hard for Canadian teams to be successful?” — @Alclembee

How has the NHL “made it very hard” for Canadian teams, Al? Edmonton has more financial resources than 90 per cent of the U.S.-based teams. They also received four No. 1 overall picks in a six-year span — one named McDavid.

When they joined the NHL they got to keep Wayne Gretzky — against the wishes of all many American owners.

Canadian fans show up and spend their money, win or lose. Not like in Denver or San Jose. Canadian cities (outside Toronto) have zero competition from NBA, MLB, college sports, etc. They’re one-horse towns when it comes to the sports dollar, with apologies to the CFL and MLS.

If the Oilers can’t win a Cup with McDavid and Draisaitl, it’s on the Oilers. Not the NHL.

more Q & A...