A common quote is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Unfortunately, I feel this describes the Oilers to perfection. Last season had a multitude of issues including goaltending and special teams woes but the end-of-season stats are quite clear: the team finished bottom 5 in the NHL in goals against and the team was 1 goal away from finishing bottom 10 in goals for.
I believe a lot of this disastrous season can be linked to two decisions by Chiarelli in relation to team depth:
1. That Caggiula, Puljujarvi and Slepyshev would pick up their play and replace Eberle's scoring on the wing
2. That Benning would continue to improve and soak up the minutes from Sekera's absence
Fast forward a season and Chiarelli's gamble failed miserably on both fronts. Slepyshev, Puljujarvi, and Caggiula put up a combined 52 points last year (one more than Eberle alone the previous season) and Benning's play was up-and-down all year and he ended up only playing 17 minutes a game. By all accounts, the 2017-18 season was a complete disaster.
However, I don't think Chiarelli or the rest of the management team learned from this at all. Going into this season, I still see the SAME two issues that we have failed to address:
1. We lack depth on right wing. Caggiula, Yamamoto, Rattie, Puljujarvi, and Aberg are all competing for top 6 spots - they have a combined 88 points across their entire career. I thought Rieder was a great depth add for the bottom 6 but he's likely the best current candidate for a top 6 spot on RW and he's never topped 37 points in his career. The reality is that we're banking on our existing guys stepping up and if they don't, we'll have next to no scoring depth on the team.
2. Once again Sekera is injured and once again we haven't made any moves to address our lack of defensive depth (at least so far). I honestly felt that even with a healthy Sekera, we needed to add a legit top 4 defenceman to be serious contenders. As it stands, our defensive depth looks something like this:
Klefbom-Larsson
Nurse-Benning
Russell-Bear/Bouchard
Even if all 6 of those players are healthy, I don't think that's a playoff defence. The truth, however, is that we won't be healthy all season - one injury to one of Klefbom, Larsson, or Nurse (who now has a lot of pressure on him to be consistent) and we likely have both Benning and Russell playing top 4 minutes for a number of games. I've seen a lot of talk about bringing in guys like Franson or Enstrom but all that does is help solidify our bottom pairing.
Last season was a disaster and if something doesn't change in the next month, I think this season is shaping up to be one as well. Once again we are banking on our existing options having huge turnarounds and leading us to success. Guys like Rattie or Yamamoto could definitely blow up this season but it's far more likely they struggle. Good teams make moves to address their weaknesses and bad teams pray things magically change - unfortunately, we're looking like we need to pray hard this season.
