Oilers Season Preview: Can this roster win a Stanley Cup?

EDMONTON — So, here we are.

After years of celebrating first-overall picks who play at age 18, mourning the Decade of Darkness, and shaking a new head coach’s hand each fall, the Edmonton Oilers have become a stable, solid organization with legitimate Stanley Cup hopes.

It’s been forever — more than 30 years, anyhow — since an Oilers team opened as a legitimate bet to win the Stanley Cup in anyone’s books, but as the players like to say, “It is what it is” this fall in Northern Alberta. Here, they’ve got as good a top-six as exists in the NHL, the two highest-scoring players over the past nine seasons in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and a group of depth players who know and embrace their roles.

Do they have the goaltending?

Well, considering the list of starting netminders whose names have been etched on Big Stanley in recent years, Stuart Skinner and Jack Campbell should be able to carry their share of the load behind a team playing a brand of defence commensurate with a true contender.

With Connor Brown, Mattias Ekholm, and another year under the belts of all the under-30s on this roster, this is the best edition of the Oilers we’ve seen since 1990, their last Cup victory.

Does that equate to the Oilers bringing a Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time the Montreal Canadiens won in 1993? Well, it’s time to start finding out.

•••••

2022-23 regular season record: 50-23-9, 109 points

2023-23 season finish: 2nd in Pacific, Eliminated 4-2 in Round 2.

Additions: Connor Brown

Subtractions: Kailer Yamamoto, Nick Bjugstad, Klim Kostin

Three Storylines To Watch

1. Defensive maturity.

The playoffs unravelled in a minute-and-a-half span last spring against Vegas, a window where those Oilers were simply not up to the task. Edmonton was tied 2-2 in the series and leading Game 5 by a 2-1 score when, late in the second period, Vegas fashioned three goals in 89 seconds.

The Oilers didn’t just bend — they broke. They shattered.

It’s hard to quantify what it is a team has to improve on to make it through a moment like that, and even tougher — if they are successful — to spot something that doesn’t happen. But in order to finally win, the Oilers have to channel those past experiences into a stronger defensive game overall, and the ability to weather those inevitable playoff storms more effectively.

2. Connor McDavid

Can McDavid become the only the third person in National Hockey League history to summit the 160-point plateau?

So far, only Wayne Gretzky (nine times) and Mario Lemieux (four times) have scored 160 points or more. McDavid had a career high 153 points (64 goals) last season, the 15^th highest total in hockey history. He improved 30 points, season over season, last year.

Can he add seven points to last season’s totals in 2023-24? He turns 27 in January, and he’s still getting better…

3. Jack Campbell

Campbell signed a five-year, $25 million deal in the summer of ’22, then promptly became a bust, posting a 3.41 goals against average and an .888 save percentage in his first season as an Oiler. For $5 million on a cash-strapped club, the Oilers are hoping for more — much more — in season No. 2.

He appears as a new man in year No. 2, and Campbell’s game has looked more economical in the preseason. He spent time with a sport psychologist over the summer, trying to deal with his penchant for dwelling on a bad goal for long enough that it begets the next one. And he is said to be in the kind of shape befitting a guy who will be facing a buyout if this season goes as bad as last season did.

If Campbell can push Stuart Skinner for the No. 1 job, and give the Oilers a viable option in the playoffs (where Skinner tired last season), they’ll be a much better team.

The season will be a success if…

The Oilers appear in the Stanley Cup Final.

We thought long and hard about the wording there. Should it read WIN the Stanley Cup?

Maybe…

Either way, this team’s time is now. And after third- and second-round ousters in the past two seasons, the Oilers are absolutely staffed and qualified to be a Stanley Cup team. It was Draisaitl who labelled this season “Cup or bust,” after the Oilers lost out to Vegas a year ago.

We’ll hold him to it.

Player Who Could Surprise: Dylan Holloway

Holloway spent too much time on the injured list, and subsequently rehab’ing in the American Hockey League, to make much of an impact last season. Today, he is 22 years old and ready to leave a mark on the game — and opponents — with a bruising, high-speed style that made him perhaps the biggest pre-season standout for Oilers.

He’ll start on the third line, and if we could think of one area where he has to work to do, it would be to inject some control into his game. You can’t hit everything all the time, and be in 10 places at once — two traits that a regular shift in the NHL will straighten out.

Holloway is one of the fastest Oilers wingers, and we expect him to play on one of the quickest lines in the game with Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele. All three have good size too, the kind of trio that could have a major impact as the season wears on.