Now that we are at the end of August, it's time to make some crazy predictions for the Edmonton Oilers for this season. It's a little game I play every year designed to have some fun and likely make a bunch of people mad and call me a homer and all that other fun stuff that comes with posting literally anything on the Internet. Last season I posted the below predictions... how close was I?
#1 Mikko Koskinen receives Vezina votes I thought Koskinen would be the Oilers main guy last season and play well enough to earn at least a few third place votes. Instead that would turn out to be Mike Smith so I'm awarding myself half points for this one.
#2 Jesse Puljujarvi is a permanent top six player by the end of January Nailed this one. Kassian fell out of favor in the top six almost immediately and after just a couple weeks of play, Puljujarvi found himself with McDavid and never looked back.
#3 Jesse Puljujarvi will score 20 goals Close but no cigar. Puljujarvi would score 15 goals in 55 games. Still impressive but not as bold as I originally suggested.
#4 Tyson Barrie Wins The Norris Nope. Barrie did come in and produced some big numbers with McDavid as expected but despite being a dominant offensive producer, his defensive game didn't earn him any nods. Darnell Nurse on the other hand turned some heads and earned himself 7th in Norris voting.
#5 Edmonton has a winning record against every North Division team except Ottawa Edmonton had a winning record against every team except Toronto (3-5-1) and Montreal (4-4-1) and did not lose a single game against the Senators. Whoops.
#6 Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl once again will lead the league in scoring Yup. McDavid finished first in scoring with 105 points and Draisaitl finished second with 84 points. The next highest producing player was Marchand with 69 points. I did say Draisaitl would outscore McDavid and that did not occur with Drai potting 31 to Connor's 33.
#7 RNH has his first ppg season Maybe my worst prediction. RNH had arguably his worst year as an Oiler and simply could not find the back of the net or be a strong performer at 5 on 5. Nuge would finish with 16-19-35 in 52 games.
#8 Kris Russell plays less than 20 games for Edmonton this season I predicted that Slater Koekkoek would outperform Russell as the shutdown option on the third pairing which would lead to Russell playing more as a #7 defenseman. This likely could have happened if Koekkoek was not injured so early in the season and be out until the playoffs. Still ended up being a miss.
#9 Anton Forsberg takes Mike Smith's backup position Anton Forsberg would not suit up for the Oilers for a single game and played musical chairs for weeks on the waiver wire. It wouldn't be until months later that Edmonton would find a new third string option in Alex Stallock and still he would not play in any games for the Oilers.
#10 No former Oilers player will score against Edmonton this season With only one division to play against, I thought I had a decent shot at this one working out. Unfortunately both Jeff Petry and Milan Lucic would score goals against Edmonton this season.
Tomorrow I will be posting my predictions for this season. Post your own bold predictions in the comments section and I might pick a few of those to share in my blog as well.