Dude, you’re saying that the Oilers are a bad team that is expected to play at a .733 P% rate.
If they are as terrible as you say they are, wouldn’t getting a .733 P% out of them be considered a coaching triumph?
You’re not wrong but at the same time I get the perception of the team. They just feel like a weird case because of how so much of their success is on three guys, and one in particular. The rest of the team can just look sorta ‘meh’ in a game and still win by 7-3 w McDavid getting 5 points. “It’s a team game” but McDavid is so extreme he can literally beat some teams by himself, but the whole team gets the win lol.
Peak Lightning (and even sub peak Lightning) lost Kucherov for huge stretches, and presumably at some point another star simultaneously given Stamkos and Point have recent injury histories, and more or less maintained what people expected of them.
Ditto for a number of other teams over the years. Look at the two centers the Bruins lost, and how they didn’t collapse. I have a harder time expecting the same of the Oilers losing McDavid, and to an extent Draisaitl and Ekholm. (Bouchard too I guess analytically, but it seemed like even Oilers fans were fed up with him points or no points before Ekholm got his game back. He’s important shelter)
For the most part the rest of the roster just has to not totally suck when those guys are ‘on’
It’s just when the Oilers look good they look great but that always features a ton from a few guys taking momentum. When they look bad they often look awful
