The Oilers return the majority of their roster after finishing second in the Pacific last season (50-23-9). This includes McDavid (153 points; 64 goals, 89 assists) and Leon Draisaitl (128 points; 52 goals, 76 assists), the two top scorers in the NHL last season. They lost in the second round of the Western Conference Stanley Cup Playoffs to the eventual Cup champion Golden Knights.
Things haven’t gone that well so far this season. The Oilers have struggled defensively, allowing an average of 4.10 goals per game (third-most goals in the NHL) and scoring at a rate of 2.70 goals per game (tied for 23rd). Last season, Edmonton was the highest scoring team in the NHL with 325 goals, an average of 3.96 per game.
McDavid had an assist in the loss to Nashville, but has not scored a goal in his last five games. He missed two games with an upper body injury suffered in a 3–2 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets on October 21. The next day, the Oilers said McDavid would be out one to two weeks, but he returned in time to play. in the Heritage Classic. He has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in eight games this season and when asked if he was 100% healthy, he simply said, “Yes.”
McDavid was also asked what he thought of his game.
“It definitely could be better, not to the level I expect,” he said.
McDavid isn’t the only player struggling offensively. Draisaitl has 13 points (four goals, nine assists) in 10 games, but has not scored a goal in his last seven games.
Before Mattias Janmark missed the last three games with an upper body injury, but was scoreless in his first seven games. Before Connor Brown didn’t score a point in his first nine games before suffering a lower-body injury in the loss to Dallas, which kept him out of action against Nashville.
Before Ryan McLeod got his first point in 10 games Saturday, an assist on Nurse’s power-play goal, and forward Dylan Holloway hasn’t had a point in 10 games.
“We go into every game thinking we’re going to win, so when that doesn’t happen, obviously you’re not happy,” the Oilers forward said. Zach Hyman said. “It seems like this continues to happen.” It’s not fun, we know how good we can be and we know what drives us to be in this situation. There is no magic pill, you just have to go out there and fix it. The frustrating thing is that we haven’t yet fixed the errors that continue to crop up in our game. We have the recipe, we know what to do, we just have to go out there and do it.
