Edmonton Oilers have no room for error as 2019-20 season starts

After an offseason with minimal roster movement, the Edmonton Oilers must get off to a good start to the 2019-20 season.

It might seem like an obvious statement, but during the Connor McDavid era, few teams have dug themselves into worse holes to begin seasons than the Edmonton Oilers. Given the lack of movement during the summer, a tough start to the year could spell disaster for a franchise many still view as flawed.

In McDavid’s first year, the Oilers lost their first four games to begin the 2015-16 season. By the end of October, Edmonton had a 4-8-0 record and only kept losing as by U.S. Thanksgiving their record had worsened to 7-14-2. At this point, the playoffs were already well out of reach as the Oilers never recovered, finishing the year with a 31-43-8 record.

More from Puck Prose

Edmonton stormed out of the gates in McDavid’s second year with a 7-1 record to begin the 2016-17 season. Although the club hit a rough patch between the middle of November and December where they went 5-7-4, their early winning ways gave them a big enough cushion to endure it. The club also more than made up for any losing streak by closing out the season with a 12-2 record en route to the only playoff berth of McDavid’s career so far.

The Oilers entered McDavid’s third year with high expectations after making the playoffs the year before but unfortunately, any thoughts of a 2017-18 postseason berth faded almost as soon as the season began.

Edmonton stumbled out of the gates, closing October with a 3-6-1 record and the losing only continued as by U.S. Thanksgiving their record had fallen to 8-13-2. For the rest of the season, any small winning streak was met by an equal or longer losing streak, en route to missing the playoffs by 17 points with a 36-40-6 record.

Then there’s last season which must have felt like a massive tease for Oiler fans as on Nov. 1 of the 2018-19 season Edmonton’s record was 8-4-1. The club had avoided a tough October much like McDavid’s only playoff year but it was also the point where the wheels began to wobble.

Only 24 days later, the Oilers record had fallen to 10-11-2. Edmonton essentially traded wins and losses for the next two months when on Jan. 19 they began the day with a 23-21-3 record. Fast forward a month later and the wheels had finally fallen off as on Feb. 19, the club’s record had crashed to 24-29-6. The team never recovered and finished the year 11 points out of the playoffs with a 35-38-9 record.

The trend is obvious as the Oilers have only ever escaped U.S. Thanksgiving weekend with a winning record once in McDavid’s four-year career, and it’s been the only season the club has earned a playoff berth. Thus, Edmonton is under tremendous pressure to get off to a great start to the 2019-20 season.

What makes this year more challenging is the club has returned basically the same roster from a year ago. Sure, there are some new faces such as free agent Markus Granlund and the swap of Milan Lucic for James Neal but there weren’t any major additions. New General Manager Ken Holland has taken the wait-and-see approach as he attempts to evaluate what he has.

On top of a new general manager, the club also has a new coach in Dave Tippett who has been out of the league for two years. He’ll be the third coach in less than a year to attempt to do something different with this roster after Todd McLellan and Ken Hitchcock failed before him.

Edmonton Oilers Season Preview. dark. Next

A winning start to the year is crucial in Edmonton as after a summer of more changes off the ice than on it has some questioning if this club could be any better than the past two seasons. Should the Oilers stumble out of U.S. Thanksgiving weekend for the fourth time in five years, it’s likely going to be another long year for the franchise.

Home / Edmonton Oilers