Favourites to fiasco: Why the season left the rails for the Edmonton Oilers

Some Edmonton Oilers fans, likely those among the younger crowd, may well remember the 2017-18 season as the biggest disappointment EVER!!!

Feel free to argue with them, if you care to.

But remember, this is the new generation of fans, those who watched their team spend a decade wandering in the wilderness, then saw it finally turn toward the promised land during last spring's Stanley Cup playoffs.

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Given the stinker season the Oilers turned in, it's difficult to remember that last summer some really smart hockey people were picking the Oilers to win the whole thing. Oddsmakers had them among the favourites, at somewhere around 10-1.

Coming off two playoffs series, Oilers fans couldn't wait for the new season to start.

Remember that season opener?

When it finally did, on Oct. 7, Connor McDavid and company coasted to an easy win in their home opener. The captain even treated Rogers Place fans to a hat-trick as his team bested the archrival Calgary Flames by a 3-0 score.

For 72 hours, all those prognosticators seemed pretty smart.

For 72 hours, the more optimistic fans could be forgiven for believing that general manager Peter Chiarelli may, just may, have been on his way to building some kind of bantam-weight, modern-day, salary-cap-era version of what folks around these parts used to call the boys on the bus.

After all, the biggest star in the game (McDavid) and a trusty sidekick (Leon Draisaitl) were safely signed to long-term contracts. (Not to mention, the full $21-million cost wouldn't kick in for another year.)

Second-tier offensive stars, Milan Lucic and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, looked to be ready to rock and roll.

Starting goalie Cam Talbot was coming off a 42-win season.

A hole that went unfilled

The defence looked OK. Steady but not spectacular. Youngsters Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom were expected to continue their development.

True, the Oilers were starting the season without their top defender, Andrej Sekera. But that wasn't such a big hole to fill, right?

So everything looked rosy. Until the bus hit a pothole and the wheels flew off.

Fresh off their win over Calgary, the Oilers went to Vancouver to play the supposedly hapless Canucks. Cam Talbot let in three goals on the first seven shots and was yanked 32 seconds into the second period. The Oilers lost 3-2.

On Oct. 9, on home ice, the Oilers outshot the Winnipeg Jets 20-11 in the first period and somehow found themselves down 2-0. They lost 5-2.

Five nights later, they embarrassed themselves by taking a 6-1 shellacking at the hands of the Ottawa Senators.

Sporting a 1-3 record, the team suddenly looked young, nervous, jumpy. Those three losses came quicker than you could say Larry Robinson. Suddenly, the Sekera-less defence looked nothing like Mr. Robinson and bore a closer resemblance to another Larry, who hung around with guys named Mo and Curly.

Next game, Carolina came to town and jumped out to a 3-0 first-period lead. They coasted to a 5-3 win.

That sure happened fast

Yikes. This was getting out of hand, fast.

After 10 games, the Oilers were 3-6-1.

The prognosticators were shaking their Magic 8-balls. Questions the balls once answered with "It is decidedly so" now come back with "Outlook not so good."

The Oilers were already chasing most of their division rivals, and chasing their own tails.

The next 10 games went like this: L-W-L-W-W-L-L-W-L-L. One quarter of the way through the season, the bus bumped along over rutted roads. (Hard to build momentum when your longest win streak is two games.)

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Heading toward Christmas, the Oilers went six and six over the next dozen games. Good one night, lousy the next. They flew to Columbus and trounced the Blue Jackets 7-2. Came home and looked awful against Nashville in a 4-0 loss.

Then, poof, they seemed to catch fire. They beat Minnesota, San Jose, St. Louis and Montreal to even their record at 17-17-2, the first time they had been .500 in more than two months.

Remember that four-game win streak?

At the holiday break, everything seemed to point in the right direction.

Fans took a breath. Enjoyed some turkey and eggnog. Three days passed without NHL hockey.

Christmas and Boxing day passed and the Oilers hit the ice again.

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And fell flat on their butts. They lost seven of their next eight and it was pretty much over by mid-January.

Now fans are left to wonder: what the heck happened?

With a record of 35-40-6 and headed into their final game Saturday night, the Oilers have no shortage of blame to pass around.

In no particular order, here's a partial list of answers.

Andrej, we really miss you

Turns out the loss of Sekera WAS a pretty big deal. Chiarelli had cap space and an entire off season to find a replacement for him. Instead, he did nothing, and the Oilers young defence floundered for the first half of the season.

Klefbom took a step backward this year. But he spent much of the season battling a nagging shoulder injury, so the jury is out on him. Adam Larsson missed almost 20 games due to injuries and the sudden death of his father. 

After a decent first season with the Oilers (23 goals, 27 assists), Milan Lucic took a big step backwards. His 10 goals this year were a major disappointment, given he has five years left on a $6-million annual contract and now looks too slow in a league that seems to get faster every season.

Talbot will finish the season with about 30 wins, down a dozen from last season. His goals-against average of 3.05 is well above, and his .907 save percentage is well below, his career marks. Talbot had too many shaky games this year. His young, under-confident team needed its goalie to steal a few games.

Come back, Jordan, all is forgiven

Chiarelli's big trade in the off season sent $6-million forward Jordan Eberle to the New York Islanders in exchange for $2.5-million RFA Ryan Strome. The salary dump rightly angered fans. Eberle scored 20 goals for the Oilers a year ago and had 25 this season for his new team. Strome managed 13 goals this season, the same number he scored a year ago. Fans in Edmonton long ago fell out of love with Eberle. But those extra dozen goals would have helped.

The Oilers special teams were dreadful. The power play (14.4 per cent) was worst in the league. The penalty kill (76.3 per cent) ranked 26th, but on home ice, it was even worse (64.6 per cent), setting a record for futility. Add all of that together, and you have the ingredients for a lousy season.

The Oilers gave up the first goal in 45 games, and lost 31 of those. They also lost 15 games when they scored the first goal. More ingredients.

A closer look at individual players offers mixed results.

Anton Slepyshev, 23, missed games with injuries and as a healthy scratch. With six goals in 49 games, he didn't make much of a case for himself. Yet he showed flashes of real offensive skill.

Drake Caggiula, 23, almost doubled his goal output from a season ago, from seven to 13. He has speed and grit and only 126 NHL games under his belt. Over to the jury.

Where is Jesse's ceiling?

Jesse Puljujarvi scored a dozen goals in 64 games. The fourth overall pick in the 2016 draft is big and fast and has great hands. He also showed he's willing to play hard along the boards. He's 19, so who knows where his ceiling is?

Draisaitl, 22, had 24 goals and 45 assists. He's earning big money and needs to keep improving. If he does, the Oilers should be set at centre for a long time.

Jujhar Khaira, 23, chipped in 11 goals and averaged more than 15 minutes a night playing a bottom-six roll. He logged some effective time on the penalty kill.

Nugent-Hopkins, still only 24, missed 20 games with broken ribs and still scored 23 goals. For much of the season, he reminded fans that he, too, was selected first overall in his draft year. He ended the season playing left wing with McDavid and looked great on the top line.

Nurse, 23, took a gigantic step forward this season. He started the season as the fourth or fifth defenceman on the depth chart and played his way onto the top pair. He's big, tough and can really skate.

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Finally ... the really good news

Connor McDavid (106 points, with one game left) will win his second Art Ross trophy as the league's leading scorer. That will be two straight 100-point seasons for the fastest and most exciting player on the planet. He may also win his second straight Hart Trophy as league MVP.

The team struggled all season to find wingers who could play with him. And maybe that's why McDavid's goal total jumped from 30 to 41 (with one game left). Post hoc ergo propter hoc (or maybe not). The kid is fun to watch almost every night and virtually on every shift.

Next season, barring injury, he'll play more than 40 of those nights in downtown Edmonton at Rogers Place. That, above all else, will have to stand in as the good news.