When Ken Holland was hired as the new GM of the Oilers he said, “Certainly there are pieces there, but you have to be deeper.” It was that lack of depth that sunk the Oil this season. Both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl cracked the 100-point mark while Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored 69 points. After those three it drops off at an alarming rate and was a huge reason for why they finished 7th in the Pacific Division and 25th in the league.

Additions: Riley Sheahan, James Neal, Markus Granlund, Mike Smith, Dave Tippett, Ken Holland

Subtractions: Jesse Puljujarvi, Ty Rattie, Tobias Rieder, Anthony Stolarz, Alex Petrovic, Andrej Sekera

Forwards:

One of the first moves Holland made as the new GM was to rid himself of Milan Lucic’s contract and give him a chance to find his game on a new team. To do so, he had to take on James Neal who had the lowest point total of his career and didn’t top 20 goals for the first time in his career. If Neal can return to his career average this will be a steal for the Oilers and will give their forward group a serious boost. Outside of Neal there weren’t too many changes to a lacklustre forward group that enters this season once again looking for someone to step up as a secondary piece behind their top-3 of McDavid, Draisaitl, and RNH.

Defense:

The Oilers bolstered the future of their blue line this summer at the draft when they took Philip Broberg at the draft this summer 8th overall but he won’t be seeing any NHL time this season. Another piece of the future starts this season with Evan Bouchard making the jump to the big leagues. He’s expected to play top-4 minutes but only if he can adapt to the new level.

Goalies:

Peter Chiarelli’s last move as GM for the Oilers was to lock up Mikko Koskinen to a 3-year deal that pays him enough to expect him to be the starting goalie but Holland brought in veteran Mike Smith anyways to battle it out for the number one spot. Both Koskinen and Smith finished 46th and 47th respectively in expected to actual goals against having each given up extra goals compared to league average goaltending. 

The Point Prediction:

The Oilers haven’t done anything to make their team much better than last year where their big-3 all had career years so we have them regressing down to a 29th place finish. Until they can find some depth in their lineup they’ll continue to hang out in the basement of the league.

 

(Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)