Speculation: Top 20 Edmonton Oilers of Importance

[4EDM14OIL93]

1. Ten points in the standings is typically a playoff berth.

2. Not only can a goalie win a game practically by themselves but we have all seen goalies elevate in the playoffs to nigh unbeatable levels. Rolison, Osgood, Murray, Quick, Bingington... to name a few. Heck an aging Price dragged a carcass of a team to the finals not long ago.

3. We all are exaggerating McDrai impact. The aforementioned Canadians of two years ago being an easy example. If we lose McDavid and/or Draisaitl their cap space "could" be used in a multitude of ways to have as an effective team as we have right now. The New York Islanders lost Tavares and went on a playoff winning streak far far better than the Oilers have had even with McDrai.

4. Needs to just be cap space by itself. Because it can't be stressed enough how hard it is in the nhl current environment to build a winning team around superstars making such a big part of the salary cap.

We have all "felt" McDavid will a win and just do amazing things but the team is built that way so McDavid HAS to do those things for us to have success. As scarey as it is for us to win a cup McDavid has to be even better than he has been. It literally what he is expected to do with his cap hit.

If McDavid does not win a cup in Edmonton or otherwise the first person to blame is McDavid himself. He is the leader, the superstar, the guy paid the most to win... Kinda sucks to be in that high pressure role but that was his choice.

Yikes. Some pretty rough takes here.

You had our backup goaltender ahead of McDrai. Lol

 

[Yuke]

Not sure how our #1 PP Dman is put way lower than the #2 PP Dman by most.
Bouchard needs to prove himself a little more before that can happen.

 

[MoneyGuy]

I'll take a stab at a top 20
1 - McDavid
2 - Draisaitl
3 - Nurse
4 - Bouchard - Should take another step forward this year. I expect him to be the main defenseman on the PP for a good chunk of the year.
5 - Hyman
6 - Campbell - Important in that we need him to play well, but he imo wasn't overly impressive in Toronto. He's an upgrade from last years 'playoff' Mike Smith but Oil still give up plenty of chances and shots. I'm not expecting some 'Vezina' performance out of him, but hoping for steady.
7 - Nuge - Some say he's a third liner, but we juggle lines enough where he gets good minutes in the top 6 and special teams.
8 - Kane
9 - Ceci
10 - Skinner - I wouldn't be surprised if we see 30 games out of Stu this year. Campbell's only been a real starting goalie for one year. Not sure I see 50+ games out of him.
11 - Kulak
12 - Yamomoto
13 - McLeod
14 - Holloway
15 - Barrie
16 - Puljujarvi
17 - Broberg
18 - Ryan
19 - Janmark
20 - Foegele

I’d move Kane up. He’s a beast.

 

[KickHimPedro]

Did I just read that the backup goalie is more important to the teams success than Conner McDavid?

That’s a hot take for sure.

 

[nexttothemoon]

They have a stat for that called "Point shares" on hockey-reference.com that takes into account multiple factors that contribute towards how many points in the standings that each player creates for their team...

2021-22 Edmonton Oilers Roster, Stats, Injuries, Scores, Results, Shootouts | Hockey-Reference.com

Check out the latest Edmonton Oilers Roster, Stats, Injuries, Scores, Results, Shootouts and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

So the order from last season was:

1​	Connor McDavid​
2​	Leon Draisaitl​
3​	Mikko Koskinen​
4​	Evan Bouchard​
5​	Darnell Nurse​
6​	Tyson Barrie​
7​	Mike Smith​
8​	Evander Kane​
9​	Zach Hyman​
10​	Cody Ceci​
11​	Duncan Keith​
12​	Ryan Nugent-Hopkins​
13​	Jesse Puljujarvi​
14​	Kailer Yamamoto​
15​	Stuart Skinner​
16​	Kris Russell​
17​	Brett Kulak​
18​	Warren Foegele​
19​	Derek Ryan​
20​	Zack Kassian​
21​	Ryan McLeod​
22​	Slater Koekkoek​
23​	William Lagesson​
24​	Devin Shore​
25​	Brendan Perlini​
26​	Derick Brassard​
27​	Brad Malone​
28​	Cooper Marody​
29​	Philip Broberg​
30​	Seth Griffith​
31​	Colton Sceviour​
32​	Kyle Turris​
33​	Josh Archibald​
34​	Markus Niemeläinen​
35​	Dmitri Samorukov​
36​	Tyler Benson​

So basically expect similar ranks this year... with of course Campbell likely where Koskinen is on that list above... Skinner where Smith is... etc