Last season, the Edmonton Oilers were just a single game away from winning it all. While several reasons could be cited for why the team couldn’t go all the way, one particular issue had consistently hampered the team all season long: slow starts.
The 2023-24 season was truly a roller-coaster of emotions for the Oilers. After a summer full of high hopes and expectations, Edmonton got off to its worst start in franchise history, sporting a 2-9-1 record in their first eleven games that had them tied for dead last in the league at one point. This ultimately caused the dismissals of head coach Jay Woodcroft and defence coach Dave Manson.
Following the hirings of Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey, the Oilers’ season took a full 180°. They held a 46-18-5 record under the new coaching staff, equating to an outstanding 0.703 points percentage that ranked first among all teams in that timeframe. The team would eventually make the Stanley Cup Finals, facing the Florida Panthers.
However, the Oilers started slow once again, losing the first three games of the finals. After Game 3, they were just a single game away from being swept.
But, once again, Edmonton defied all odds and became the first team since 1945 to rally back from a 3-0 deficit in the finals to tie the series.
From last place in the league at the start of the season to first place for the rest, and then starting the cup finals down 3-0 just to come back to tie it, 2023-24 was truly a thrilling season for Edmonton. If there’s one thing you can’t complain about regarding the Oilers, it’s that they never fail to entertain you.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough in the end, as the Panthers would go on to win Game 7 and hoist the Stanley Cup. Ultimately, the Oilers faced the consequences of consistently starting late.
As a whole, Edmonton performed well in Games 4 through 7, but it is an exceedingly difficult task for any team to win four consecutive games in the Cup finals. In the end, the Oilers lost because they dug themselves into a massive hole that was far too difficult to crawl out of.
I would argue that Edmonton’s 2-9-1 start in the regular season also had a substantial effect on their eventual outcome. It was the sole reason that the team failed to win the division and have home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs, as they spent the entire year crawling back from that hole. It may have also forced Connor McDavid to return from his early-season injury too quickly.
Note that the Oilers outscored Florida 16 to 6 in Edmonton, but scored a mere two goals at 5v5 in four games in Florida. If the Oilers had home-ice advantage and Game 7 was held in Edmonton, could this have been an entirely different story?
We’ll never know, but at the very least, I strongly believe it would have had an impact.
Slow starts are not new for the Oilers
None of this is particularly new for this team. The Oilers have consistently excelled in the second half of the season, but slow starts or early season mediocrity have occurred quite often for this team throughout the past five seasons.
Here is a visual that nicely summarizes this:
In 2019-20, the Oilers did well from October to November, but they had an awful December, sporting a 5-8-1 record in that month overall. At the end of December, they were not in a playoff spot.
But, they rallied back in the second half of the season up until the season pause in March of 2020. From Dec 31st to March 11th, the Oilers held a 17-8-5 record, good for 6th in the league in that span. Many fans will recall that their second line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl, and Kailer Yamamoto was the biggest change in the second half.
In 2020-21, it can be argued that Edmonton did not have an awful start, but for their standards, they were rather mediocre until March 3, 2021. For the rest of the season, they significantly improved, as they held a record of 21-8-2 that ranked fifth in the league and ultimately helped them to clinch second place in the division.
The Oilers actually started quite strong at first in 2021-22, with a 9-1 record in their first 10 games. However, this proved to be unsustainable, and they would subsequently regress at a substantial rate and fall out of a playoff spot in mid January. At one point, they had a stretch of games with a disastrous 2-11-2 record; ultimately, head coach Dave Tippett and defence coach Jim Playfair were fired, and Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson took their places. Under their new coaching staff, the Oilers flourished, possessing a fantastic 26-9-3 record.
In 2022-23, the Oilers yet again had a mediocre first half, and were out of a playoff spot at the halfway mark. However, things took a massive shift in the second half, as they held an outstanding 29-5-6 record, equating to a 0.800 (!) points percentage. One major factor for their bounce back was the acquisition of Mattias Ekholm at the trade deadline.
Finally, as discussed earlier, the Oilers had their worst start in franchise history in 2023-24, and then followed it up with an exceptional 46-18-3 record.
All-in-all, it’s easy to see the visible trend here. The Oilers have had a disappointing first half in each of their past five years, ranging from mediocre to flat-out abysmal, and then they quickly rallied back in the remainder of the season to make the playoffs.
But, as mentioned earlier, these slow starts can have significant consequences, notably losing out on home-ice advantage and granting less time for Edmonton’s stars to rest before the playoffs.
So, how will they fare in 2024-25?
There were a myriad of factors that caused Edmonton’s brutal start in 2023-24.
Goaltending, defence (particularly off the rush), the penalty kill, depth scoring, and coaching were all at their absolute worst; everything that could have went wrong, had gone wrong. The team also had several key players not at 100%, particularly Mattias Ekholm and Connor McDavid; Ekholm missed all of training camp and pre-season due to an injury, partially causing the Ekholm – Bouchard pair to have a slow start, while McDavid sustained a lower-body injury (possibly his oblique) and accumulated 14 points in his first 15 games, far from his usual sky-high production.
Heading into the 2024-25 campaign, there are several key factors to keep track of.
Firstly, the obvious factor is health. If McDavid and Draisaitl are both at 100%, you can essentially guarantee that the team won’t start nearly as poorly as they did last season. With Ekholm and Bouchard expected to be healthy, having an elite top pairing to start the season will also be a massive boost.
Additionally, one thing that has remained somewhat consistent for the Oilers – throughout both the good and bad stretches – is their overall possession and scoring chance differential metrics.
It’s worth noting that, during both Edmonton’s 2-9-1 start and their 0-3 series deficit in the cup finals, they were creating chances and drove possession, but the problem was that they failed to consistently finish. With the additions of Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner to Edmonton’s top-six, there should be significant improvement in that area.
On the other hand, arguably the most important factor in regards to starting on time will be goaltending.
Up until November 24, Stuart Skinner produced a horrendous 0.868 save percentage, allowing a full eight goals more than expected to. Of course, Edmonton’s defence was abysmal to start the defence, allowing high-quality rush chances at an alarming rate, but even after accounting for team defence, Skinner remained well below-average.
Fortunately, he significantly rebounded for the remainder of the regular-season, but in the playoffs, he continued to have inconsistency and “streakiness” issues. Skinner played well against Dallas in the conference finals and in the last four games of the cup finals, but he had substantial struggles in the second round against Vancouver and in the first three games of the cup finals.
Heading into his third season as Edmonton’s starting goaltender, Skinner must aim to be considerably more consistent. They don’t need some Vezina-level performance from him; even simply average goaltending would drastically lower Edmonton’s chances of starting poorly.
All things considered, the Oilers must learn a lesson from last season, and start on time in 2024-25. It could pay dividends in the long run.
