The Oilers have a long road ahead of them in the quest for the Playoffs. In fact, the task seems so impossible right now that it's almost laughable to suggest the Oilers will leapfrog 6 other Western Conference teams into that 8th spot.
With a -67 Goal Differential on the year and the frightening reality that no team who made the 2nd season in the West had a negative number the climb is practically Everest. The Oil leaked Goals Against at an incredible rate last year, fishing them out of their cage 270 times. I wish I could say that the bulk of that was from the 1st Half of the year but it wasn't. It was pretty much an even split.
The good news there is that those fortunes can turn around relatively quickly. The Tampa bay Lightning lead the NHL in Goals Allowed in 2011-2012 with 281 and just 2 years later they finished with 215 GA. If Ben Scrivens can prove his past season wasn't a fluke then the Oilers stand to lower that number.
Every move they made this off-season was about keeping pucks away from their own net. The Defense needed upgrading so they brought in Nikitin and Fayne. Neither player qualifies as the 1D the team sorely lacks but they are big top 4 blueliners. Fayne in particular was targeted for his history of quality underlying numbers (Corsi). The same can be said of Purcell and Pouliot.
But 4 new players won't catapult the team into a Playoff spot. The Oilers are still a team built around youth and that means they will be at the mercy of the personal growth of several players. Will a finally healthy RNH take the next step that seems inevitable for a player with his talent level? Can Yakupov find his game with Eakins guiding him along the way? Will Justin Schultz become the player the management believes he can be?
No number of complimentary players can be added that will take the Oilers to the next level if their core is still waiting around for answers to those questions.
It's summer in Edmonton so I'm still filled with Hope about these Oilers. MacT has added everything he can add to surround the young players with what they need to succeed, but it's still up to them whether this rebuild ever ends.
The Oilers are at base camp and they have all the right gear, but the climb is still ahead of them.
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