Edmonton Oilers: 5 players who must improve next season

The Edmonton Oilers must show some improvement after being one of the biggest underachievers last season. Here are five players who they need to bounce back in 2018-19. 

Coming off their first postseason appearance in over a decade, the Edmonton Oilers had great expectations to live up to last season. This is something they were not able to do, as they finished as arguably the NHL’s biggest underachievers. The Oilers went from 103 points in 2016-17 to merely 78 in 2017-18.

Going into this season, the pressure is high in Edmonton. The Oilers can’t afford to burn another amazing year from captain Connor McDavid. He’s in the best years of his career, so it stands to gain the team’s best chances of winning are right now.

More from Puck Prose

• Detroit Red Wings 2023 Rookie Camp Has Plenty of Ups and Downs
• This Columbus Blue Jackets rookie doesn’t want to be forgotten
• 2 trades the Boston Bruins must make to secure the Stanley Cup
• 3 reasons the Avalanche won’t win the Stanley Cup in 2024
• This is a big year for Alex Turcotte and the Los Angeles Kings

As bad as the Oilers were last season, they likely aren’t truly as bad as they looked last year. Just like they weren’t as good as they were in 2016-17. The Oilers are somewhere in the middle.

The big question is which side are they closer towards – the team who challenged the Anaheim Ducks in the second round? Or the team who did so poorly, McDavid wasn’t a Hart Trophy finalist despite having more points than he did during his 2016-17 Hart campaign?

Going into the 2018-19 season, the Oilers are looking for their underachieving roster to bounce back. This was the largest reason for their unexpected fall from grace in 2017-18. Some of them are veterans who must shake off rusty seasons. Others are young players being expected to handle larger roles.

It’s not a good sign that the Oilers are banking on a lot of things going right. But you can’t write off any team that has McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. So a return to the postseason, while not likely, is undeniably plausible. Here are the five players who the Oilers will be counting on most heavily to improve.

4. Oscar Klefbom

To say Oscar Klefbom had a rough 2017-18 season is an understatement. Due to multiple injuries, borderline negligent deployment while injured, and lots of bad luck, the young Edmonton Oilers defenseman didn’t have the strong season they were expecting him to have.

In 66 games, Klefbom had 21 points. His 0.32 points per game rate was the lowest of his career. Klefbom saw a decrease in virtually all of his stats from 2016-17 to 2017-18.

As implied earlier, there’s a really good chance his struggles were related to outside circumstances that he couldn’t control. For example, is it Klefbom’s fault Edmonton’s goalies saved just 88.78 percent of the shots on goal when he was on the ice? Especially when he was a net gain as far as scoring chances, shot attempts, and even high-danger scoring chances?

Klefbom should be fully healthy going into the 2018-19 season, which is a good sign. The Oilers will need him to be at his best without Andrej Sekera. Klefbom, when healthy, has been excellent for Edmonton. They need him to shake off a forgettable 2017-18 campaign and prove why he’s one of the best young defensemen in the NHL.

On the bright side, all of the underlying numbers suggest Klefbom has what it takes to bounce back and return to his 2016-17 form.

3. Ryan Strome

The Edmonton Oilers acquired Ryan Strome from the New York Islanders for Jordan Eberle last summer. They desperately needed a more versatile forward. Strome had a fine season, but it’s hard not to look back at that trade and be sad. Eberle clearly had the better season and was the better player.

Going into the 2018-19 season, Strome will have a pretty clear role – third-line center. He held his own last season in that role during the last month of the season. Assuming the Oilers stick with Nugent-Hopkins on the top forward line, Strome will have to turn their third forward line from a bottom-six forward group into a top-nine forward group. The best teams have three scoring lines. Currently, Edmonton has two. It will be up to Strome to make it three.

And it’s not like the Oilers will need him to be a top-tier center like McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. They’ll just need Strome to be to their Nick Bonino or Lars Eller. However, the Oilers also won’t be giving too much help to him as far as wings. Tobias Rieder, on paper, seems like a good fit. But with the Oilers lacking right-wing options, Strome will likely have to be the guy who drives that line.

Is that fair? Probably not. But life isn’t fair. Strome’s going to be a critical piece for the Oilers. He could be a huge difference maker if he can hang onto that third-line center role and allow Edmonton to keep Nugent-Hopkins and McDavid together.

2. Milan Lucic

They say winning cures all ailments in sports. If you want proof this is true, look no further than Edmonton Oilers forward Milan Lucic. He signed a long-term deal back in the summer of 2016. Though there were some early struggles as he adjusted to his new team, people overlooked them because the Oilers were winning.

However, last season, Lucic’s struggles continued and there was not much winning to hide them. They were on full display. Lucic went from 50 points in 2016-17 to just 34 in 2017-18 despite playing in all 82 games both seasons.

The fact that he was expected to replace Taylor Hall, who won the Hart Trophy in 2017-18, magnified his issues. Lucic’s issues were also masked by his power-play production in 2016-17, as 25 of his 50 points came on the man advantage. Last season, that fell to just seven. By comparison, hehad 12 power-play goals in 2016-17.

There’s only one thing that is going to quiet Lucic’s critics – winning. In order for that to happen, he’s going to have to be more productive. The Oilers can’t afford to have someone with a $6 million cap hit struggle the way Lucic did in 2017-18. While he did well with McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins individually, he didn’t play with them on the top line.

Lucic will likely be asked to be Draisaitl’s left wing. His numbers with him last season were encouraging if you’re willing to overlook their goals for percentage.

1. Cam Talbot

The biggest difference the Edmonton Oilers had from 2016-17 to 2017-18 was their goaltending. In 2016-17, they had the eighth-best goaltending in the NHL. This fell to the fifth-worst in 2017-18. Cam Talbot‘s regression played a huge role in this.

He was excellent in 2016-17. In 73 games, he posted a very good .919 save percentage, including a .927 save percentage at even strength. Talbot regressed noticeably in 2017-18, as these numbers fell to .908 and .916, respectively.

No Edmonton Oilers player is in a better position to save their season than Talbot. Even more so than McDavid. Because while number 97 is unquestionably a generational talent, he can’t make up for his teammate’s mistakes (at least not directly). Talbot, however, can.

In 2016-17, the Oilers were a flawed team defensively. But Talbot was able to help them mask these flaws. He wasn’t able to do so in 2017-18. There were other factors at play as well, but if you want a simple reason why the Oilers weren’t able to replicate their success, it’s hard not to point the finger at Talbot.

A part of all of this could be his usage. Talbot has played in 140 regular season games over the past two seasons (153 if you include the postseason). This is because the Oilers have never had a reliable backup under him. Edmonton paid a huge sum to get Mikko Koskinen to come over from the KHL to be Talbot’s backup. So maybe that will help.

Ultimately, the 2018-19 Edmonton Oilers season will likely be determined by how well Talbot plays.