- Hype got into their heads early on, they had many stinkers against last years non-playoff teams, it took a while before they realized it's a) hard to win if you don't compete against any team b) their ability to bounce back is not as good as they thought
- Underachieving defense, as a Jets fan i know what it's like when it feels like your back-end just can't find that traction and you never seem to have your best possible D group out there playing well
- Talbot not having a great season, him and the defense are not mutually exclusive, when your D struggles usually your goaltending struggles too, creating a negative snowball effect
- Eberle trade backfired hard, for a team that was already weak on the wings giving up a productive player for a borderline useless one hurt
- Lack of depth guys stepping up, in the summer you would've maybe thought a guy like Slepyshev could start producing more this year, perhaps Strome turns it around etc. but for the most of the season they haven't had that, if McDavid or Draisaitl isn't getting it done they likely lose the game and that can be really frustrating
- Injuries, whether it's some of the dmen or Nuge, they've had their fair share
Those are the 6 things that come to mind.
But in saying all that, there's a solution to literally every one of them (except the injury part obviously).
- You can be damn sure the Oilers will be ready to compete from the get-go next season, and this experience as a whole will be good for them, it'll give them something to rally around every time things start to slip a bit
- Underachieving defense won't underachieve anymore, guys will look themselves in the mirror and prepare for next year accordingly, im not even a fan of the Oilers and i have a lot of confidence that d-core can and will play a lot better. Not to mention most of them are still young players, this whole process can make them better players in the long run
- Talbot gets better as the defense gets better
- They can only get better on the wings.. whether it's guys like Pulju or Yamamoto making a bigger impact, going out in FA to sign a player or 2 (pretty decent market of wingers) or making a trade, you can be damn sure Chiarelli will be active (now whether or not that's a good thing we'll see lol)
- As they get more players in the mix, that'll mean guys will have to fight to even stay in the lineup, which always helps the depth part
People overreact to this season way too hard. I mean, has it been bad? Sure. Fans of the Oilers have every right to be mad. But as far as looking into the future, this season will not be a negative thing. You throw it into the garbage can, realize what needs to improve and move on.
Issues the Oilers hockey team have are so much easier to fix than many other things you could think of. Im sure if you ask the Habs fans they would swap their problems for the Oilers problems in an instant.
Management is a different story, and if they screw it up again next summer then there's a big problem.
But anyway, the Oilers are not the first nor will they be the last team that follows up one good year with a bad one. Next season it will likely happen to someone else and not many people will see it coming again.
