April Already

As days slowly get shorter and the temperature drops without a care, nightmares of snowstorms are on the horizon. For fans of the big 4 sports in North America, nightmares will have to wait. This is the best time of year.

The NBA season is less than 2 weeks out, the NFL is in full swing and only 7 MLB teams are left competing for the World Series.

For those of us who live in Edmonton, our only representative comes out of the NHL. The Oilers kicked off their season last night, getting shelled 6-0 as they hosted the Winnipeg Jets at Rogers Place.

It won’t be an 82-0 season for the Oilers yet again.

It’s early and anything can happen, but assuming the Oilers live up to their cup favourite expectations. These are the 3 most important things to figure out before April’s playoffs.

1.    Defence!

This is an easy choice for even the most casual fan.

After a run to game 7 of the final with a shaky D core, the Oilers subtracted.

They let Desharnais walk in free agency, lost Broberg to a St. Louis offer sheet and cut Cici loose in a trade for a younger but unproven Ty Emberson.

To fill roster spots Josh Brown signed a 3-year deal and Travis Dermott earned himself a contract after coming to camp on a PTO.

The eye test would say these are not winning moves. Stats tell the same story. The Oilers moved out 241 points over 982 games played, while bringing in 106 points in 649 games played.

Emberson, the 73rd pick in the 2018 entry draft, plays the perfect complementary game for Nurse. But eating second pair minutes on a cup favourite in a hockey crazy city is a pressure he’s never faced before.

Brown lost the third pair job to Dermott to start the season. Dermott is an NHL vet who understands the pressures of playing in a Canadian market after his time in Toronto and Vancouver.

In a perfect world, the gamble on a young, unproven Emberson works out. So does the combination of Dermott, Brown and Stecher to play as the 6th defenseman.

In the real world this is not the group we will see come April. The Oilers will have cap flexibility for the first time in recent memory. Expect them to upgrade the second pair, finding Nurse a partner at the deadline. Which also makes the competition for the 6th defensive spot much more interesting.

2.    Is Stuart Skinner the answer in net?

This seems silly. I know. But hear me out.

Skinner has been pinned as the Oilers answer in the cage. Especially after the Jack Campbell experiment blew up barely after it started. But Skinner has yet to be great.

The 25-year-old has more experience under his belt than most of his colleagues this early in his career. But the ups and downs have plagued the Oilers, particularly in the playoffs.

To close out the series against Dallas in last year’s WCF, Skinner posted a .950 and a .971 in games 5 and 6, only allowing 2 goals in those games. Incredible. But the series prior, Vancouver chased Skinner in game 3 after a .733 in 2 periods. Calvin Pickard finished game 3 and started games 4 and 5 before Skinner got the crease back in game 6 for the rest of the run.

Teams such as the Colorado Avalanche have won the cup with average goaltending but that translates to out scoring your problems. They also did it with a D core that was loaded 1 through 6.

The Oilers don’t share that luxury right now, however they do have the star power up front to make up for a couple bad starts.

Skinner has shown flashes of being a top tier netminder in the best league the world has to offer. Health and consistency have to be the focus going into this years campaign.

Stealing more games must be the goal, at least not giving as many away.

3.    Stopping the Slumps.

Last year the “yearly” slump cost Jay Woodcroft his job. The Oilers cannot start 3-9-1 again. There will not be a 16-game winning streak yearly. Easy and simple as that.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve rooted for this team. Also, for as long as I can remember this team has gone ICE cold for about a 3 week stretch of the year. The beauty is you never know when it will hit.

You cannot make the playoffs in October or November, but you can miss them. Last year the Oilers flirted with that reality.

As a team with a 3-month offseason, a hangover is something they might have to battle through. As a team with cup aspirations, they cannot let anything of the sort drag on.

To mitigate excessive travel and maintain favourable matchups throughout playoffs, the Oilers will have to keep a pace that hasn’t been seen for years.

They have the right pieces to the puzzle to make it work on paper, doing it in real life will be another beast with a target on your back all year long.

For now, all we can do is sit back and enjoy another 81 games of a talented roster in orange and blue.

Happy October sports fans.

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