Edmonton Oilers Will Still Struggle in 2015-16

Hockey fans will remember April 18 as the date that changed the Edmonton Oilers forever. On this day, the Oilers won the 2015 NHL Draft lottery and the right to select Connor McDavid from the Erie Otters. While McDavid is the franchise player that every team looks for, one talented rookie won’t turn this team around. The list of first overall picks playing on bad teams their rookie year is long including Sidney Crosby, John Tavares, Steven Stamkos, Alex Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk and the several young stars on this Oilers team. Before winning the draft lottery, the Oilers were the team with the darkest future in the NHL. So expectations should be tempered for 2015-16.

But that doesn’t mean the Oilers aren’t turning things around. The catalyst to their shortcomings was their management which changed this offseason. Though hiring the guy that traded a 21-year-old Tyler Seguin is questionable when trying to push the team in the right direction. Despite this, anyone is better than the old regime the Oilers had.

Peter Chiarelli has a lot of youth to work with including rising stars Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and McDavid. These players along with Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov and Jordan Eberle form a solid core for the future. But here is where the main issue of this team lies; other than Nurse, all of these players are forwards. What about the rest of the team?

Management tried fixing this issue. Since defense was the Oilers’ biggest problem, they traded a couple of draft picks for probable bust Griffin Reinhart. Reinhart could become a solid defenseman but his immobility will limit the skillset that had him drafted fourth overall. In return, the Oilers gave up the draft picks that became Mathew Barzal and Anthony Beauvillier, two future stars in this league. The New York Islanders were able to admit their mistake with Reinhart and take advantage of naive management in Edmonton. Not a good sign for the future.

The other issue with this team was goaltending. So at the draft, the Oilers traded draft picks for New York Rangers‘ backup Cam Talbot. With a .931 career save percentage, Talbot is the type of goalie that this team should be taking chances on. However, he achieved this on a stronger Rangers squad with the highest PDO in the NHL last year. Also, his 57 career NHL starts indicates that his work was done in a small sample size. Therefore, there is reason to believe that Talbot will falter behind a soft defense in Edmonton. But even if he does, giving up later draft picks for a potential starting goalie is a good acquisition.

As for free agency, they were able to sign one of the best defenseman available in Andrej Sekera. Sekera is a player that will improve the defense, even at $5.5 million. Because Edmonton isn’t an attractive destination for free agents, the Oilers have to pay up to land players of this caliber. The acquisition of Mark Letestu should help their forward depth as well.

After this offseason, Oilers fans once again have hope. The new regime in Edmonton made some improvements. However, the only great move was drafting McDavid out of luck. Chiarelli still made some questionable decisions that will hinder this team in 2015-16 and beyond. So don’t expect the Oilers to live up to the hype.