Speculation: where do you see the oilers finishing this season

[Oilhawks]

Stanley Cup Champions

 

[McHaNugYakEbNurDra]

Spinal Tap reference?

 

[nexttothemoon]

If everyone on the team plays on average... at their average level... the team at it stands now is a ~96 point team with about a 75% chance of making the playoffs.

If they collectively perform above average... the team is a 98+ point team with a 100% chance at the playoffs.

If they are hit with a tougher stretch of injuries than average (this IS the Oilers so this is very possible) and/or they regress as a team like they did last year... they obviously will not sniff a playoff spot yet again.

Remains to be seen which scenario plays out but for now I'm going with the average scenario... 96 point team with ~75% chance at playoffs.

If we see performances above expectations from 1 or more players like Nygard/Persson/Benson etc... the chances of playoffs very quickly could rise to that 100% likelihood.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

83.3 points is Dom L’s prediction. He has been deadly accurate the past 2 seasons with his methodology.

It’s an Athletic article so it’s paywall.

 

[Fourier]

Closer to the bottom of the west than to the playoffs IMO. You have St. Louis, Nashville, Winnipeg, Dallas, Minnesota, Colorado, Calgary, San Jose and Vegas who are quite clearly better. Then you have Chicago, Vancouver and Arizona who are probably better. Then there is Anaheim and L.A. who are probably worse. I'd say that Edmonton is in the Chicago, Vancouver and Arizona tier.

On paper, it's a bottom 10 defense, bottom 5 goaltending, one of the worst winger groups in the league.
It's the first season in a long time that I'm not really looking forward to although I'll be invested as always when the regular season gets underway. I'm much more interested in Bakersfield this season.

It's also possible that I'm underestimating this team. Maybe a good system will elicit some real buy in and mask the many deficiencies the team has similar to Trotz with the Islanders last season but the way the roster looks, it's hard to envision a highly competitive team this season. The future looks a lot better if the prospects are groomed properly and some cap flexibility is created but the short term should be painful.

I think you are being overly generous with some of these teams. Minnesota for example has a very good defense but a very questionable forward group. Koivu is probably still their top center and he is coming off a significant knee injury at age 36. Parise had a bounce back year last year but he has slowed down a lot and is now 35. Staal is turning 35 as well.

Winnipeg may see a big step back. They have a very inexperienced defense. They are also at risk of having one or both of Laine and Connor miss training camp. Colorado has lots of promise, but like the Oilers they are very top heavy up front. They also shipped out three guys who combined for 150 points last year with only Kadri as a proven replacement. They have a hugely positive future on the back end but right now two of there three best defensemen have a total of 155 NHL regular season games and both guys are small. Johnson is coming off of shoulder surgery as well so they are going to have kids carry a lot of the weight.

Vegas is a good example of why playing the right way can also make a big difference. I don't think there is any argument that puts Vegas ahead of the Oilers talent wise. They simply get the most out of every player.

San Jose is also a bit of a wild card this year. They lost a lot of offense up front, even if it was aging. I'd say they also have a huge question mark in net and while they have great offensive defensemen their back end is not so great at defending. I think a lot of their success will depend on Karlsson's health.

 

[McShogun99]

1. Vegas
2. Phoenix
3. San Jose
4. Calgary
5. Edmonton
6. Vancouver
7. LA
8. Anaheim

Edmonton squeaks into the 8th spot and makes the playoffs.

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

83.3 points is Dom L’s prediction. He has been deadly accurate the past 2 seasons with his methodology.

It’s an Athletic article so it’s paywall.

Lol, no Dom isn't deadly accurate.

In the 2016-17 season he predicted something similar, was completely wrong. Instead of owning up to it being a miss on his model, he declared it was a wash.

Calling the Oilers a team with three third pairs is par the course for Dom.

 

[cpsman]

-Gonna be optimistic and say playoffs.
-There are a lot of prospects ready to compete for a spot in the lineup. At least one or two of them should make at least a minor impact for us once called up.
-The Neal factor could be a big one..... if he ends up not being able to play up to middle six winger potential, then we'll have a tough time. But if he can return to even 70-80% form, then that will really help secondary scoring
-One of Koskinen/Smith need to get hot. This is the toughest thing to be optimistic about.
-McDavid factor - this guy can really turn it on and drive the team. That being said... I'll wait till he's on the ice this month. Never know how that knee injury is actually healing till he's playing.

 

[Vagabond]

To be honest.. I really like what Holland did to the bottom 6 with no cap space. The Lucic trade will be a big contributor to the top 6. I'm not hugely concerned with the defense as many are. I hope to see two young Prospects play some games. My concerns are more involving the two netminders.

The additions of Archi, Granlund and Nygard.. the bottom six is much better than last season.

What sank the season last year minus Chia's massive mistakes was the bottom six, goaltending and penalty killing. All have improved minus the goaltending.

The Oil got faster. They got major depth in the bottom six with major competition for spots. The PK will improve. The defense doesn't look worse and who know's.. maybe with some development, its improved. The top six is better with Lucic gone and Neal in. The Goaltending is suspect at best.

I have a good feeling with Tipps as the new HC and Holland as the GM.

I believe this Oilers team will have a better work ethic and compete until April. For sure they will improve by at least 10 points from last season. Lol

 

[Stud Muffin]

Bottom 6 will be better but nothing else has really changed, all I’m hoping for is some good seasons from our prospects who are close to NHL ready and hopefully that pushes us to playoffs in 20/21

 

[CanmoreMike]

The Oilers have 8 guys who are NHL players plus at least another 2 who are/might still be on the cusp.

They need 4 guys to step into roles here and take them. They have 5-7 AHLers who are on the cusp. They have an additional 2 or 3 guys from Europe who might be able to seize an opportunity here. They aren’t banking on one player here and there to make a line work like times before. Whether it is Haas or Gagner or Khara or Cave who can anchor the 3rd line...I don’t care. One (1!) needs to step up.

They finally have depth on defence. They have 3 certified NHL dmen on left side plus another 2 on the right and might even have a 3rd one to boot. In addition they have depth in the minors. They have 3 LHD who might be able to be injury filler this season and another 3 RHD who could do the same.

They might even be able to attract some PTOs from forgotten players.

I don’t see all doom and gloom. Play hard. Play smart. Play for one another and this season should be a good one.

 

[DerpMorg]

Out of it by early March.

Too late to be sellers, but not in a state to be buyers either.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Lol, no Dom isn't deadly accurate.

In the 2016-17 season he predicted something similar, was completely wrong. Instead of owning up to it being a miss on his model, he declared it was a wash.

Calling the Oilers a team with three third pairs is par the course for Dom.

I said the last 2 seasons. He was bang on in 2017/18 and 2018/19. He was way off in 2016/17 but his model is a bell curve. His prediction is the top of the curve and it allows for large variances. His modelling is more accurate in where teams finish than any other I have seen.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Weren’t they mathematically in it til mid March last year?

Because the West was a dumpster fire. They still had like 5 teams to jump over.

 

[wetcoast]

it will all depend on whether or not we get any production out of the AHL guys up front like Benson, Marody and Gambardella, or our 2 free agents Nygard and/or Haas, as well as whether or not Bear/Jones or both can make the team and play solid D and score points. if not, then likely out by February?

Their goalies had a .901 save %, Koskinen was slightly above league average with a .906.

If they can get to the league average in save % then they will be fighting for a playoff spot.

I think Smith gets rejuvenated playing for Tippet again then it will go a long way.

 

[Chet Manley]

One of these years improving through maturation has to work. Right?

Some seem to be still counting on addition via subtraction, which hasn't really worked ever. Team isn't making the playoffs because Horcoff or Lucic or Sekra or Smid or bla bla bla is gone unless the extra cap space makes it happen(hasn't the past decade)

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

If everyone on the team plays on average... at their average level... the team at it stands now is a ~96 point team with about a 75% chance of making the playoffs.

If they collectively perform above average... the team is a 98+ point team with a 100% chance at the playoffs.

If they are hit with a tougher stretch of injuries than average (this IS the Oilers so this is very possible) and/or they regress as a team like they did last year... they obviously will not sniff a playoff spot yet again.

Remains to be seen which scenario plays out but for now I'm going with the average scenario... 96 point team with ~75% chance at playoffs.

If we see performances above expectations from 1 or more players like Nygard/Persson/Benson etc... the chances of playoffs very quickly could rise to that 100% likelihood.

Based on what?

Sean Tierney from Charting Hockey and his contribution of WAR charts has us at a 74 point team, tied with Detroit for 29th and Dom Luszczyszyn who's arguably among the best analytics writers has us ranked 27th with 83.3 points and a 20% chance at the playoffs.

 

[Todd from Leduc]

Are you saying we will finish 11th?? I’m going with top in the West, not going to lie I’m still a bit worried about Tampa though.

Hollsy has improved the roster in pretty much every way.

He dumped deadweight Looch for a perannual 20 goal scorer in Real Deal.

We brought in some sneaky good secondary skill in Granlund and Archi which will be huge on pk. I honestly feel both of these guys are ready to break through the ceiling as I think they were held back on crappy teams.

Mike Smith feeding McDavid for breakaways is going to be a huge X factor and will force teams to change their offensive systems.

Dave “Just the Tip” Tippet is a systems guy and will provide the structure and discipline the team was lacking under Hitch, McLelland, Nelson and Eakins.

McDavid, Drai, Chiasson and Nuge are only trending up and haven’t even hit their peak yet.

There’s also a good chance we’ve got a diamond in the rough in Jurco, Cave and Hass. The upside on these guys is hugely underrated. I’m so excited to see what this squad can do.

Not to mention bringing in Hollsy eliminated all the OBC meddling and brought this organization back to its rightful spot of being one of the premier respected clubs in the League.

 

[nexttothemoon]

Based on what?

Sean Tierney from Charting Hockey and his contribution of WAR charts has us at a 74 point team, tied with Detroit for 29th and Dom Luszczyszyn who's arguably among the best analytics writers has us ranked 27th with 83.3 points and a 20% chance at the playoffs.

I used the 3 year average of points for all the Oilers NHL players and average sv pct for the goalies (last season for Koskinen and last 3 years for Smith). I assumed about an average amount of shots against for the team which is what the team had last season.

I also didn't include any stats projections for players like Nygard, Persson, Haas, Benson etc... because they have no history at the NHL level so there's room for some upside surprise there if a player or two comes in and surprises to the upside.


To be clear the projections are based on players on the team playing at their "average" levels... so if the team collectively regresses as they did last year... obviously no playoffs... but as it stands right now I'm projecting ~96 pts and 75% chance at playoffs and if the team has a Nygard/Benson (or some other player) step up and contribute more than expected... the team likely is a 100% playoff team.


The HUGE unknown of course is injuries but that's the case every year and we just have to hope that the key players for the Oilers don't have an abnormal amount of injuries which would of course quickly throw the towel in on the season.

 

[nexttothemoon]

Based on what?

Sean Tierney from Charting Hockey and his contribution of WAR charts has us at a 74 point team

Honestly I think forecasting this team to be a 74 pt team is a bit nutty.... the bottom 6 was horrendously bad last year and they had shit backup goaltending from Talbot and the team STILL had almost 80 pts... so to forecast that they'll be 5 pts less this season than last year is just being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic.


It's possible some of the predictions and projections are taking into account that McDavid will miss quite a bit of hockey this year which may skew the projections to the downside but that's making assumptions that I don't think you can really count on... ANY player can get hurt and miss games and we can't realistically know in advance if the Oilers will have a higher amount of critical man games missed due to injury this year or not... so I'm not factoring that into the projections.

 

[Tad Mikowsky]

Based on what?

Sean Tierney from Charting Hockey and his contribution of WAR charts has us at a 74 point team, tied with Detroit for 29th and Dom Luszczyszyn who's arguably among the best analytics writers has us ranked 27th with 83.3 points and a 20% chance at the playoffs.

If Dom is one of the best analytics writers, yikes.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Honestly I think forecasting this team to be a 74 pt team is a bit nutty.... the bottom 6 was horrendously bad last year and they had **** backup goaltending from Talbot and the team STILL had almost 80 pts... so to forecast that they'll be 5 pts less this season than last year is just being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic.


It's possible some of the predictions and projections are taking into account that McDavid will miss quite a bit of hockey this year which may skew the projections to the downside but that's making assumptions that I don't think you can really count on... ANY player can get hurt and miss games and we can't realistically know in advance if the Oilers will have a higher amount of critical man games missed due to injury this year or not... so I'm not factoring that into the projections.

It's not predicting McDavid missing any time. It does take into account things like McDavid and Draisaitl regressing back to their average career shooting percentages for instance, which is a 25 goal decline from last year. Jonathon Willis also wrote a piece for the Athletic taking our goaltenders predicted 5-on-5 SV% based on age regression which predicts 20-25 goals more against than last year's total.
Dom uses a pretty interesting formula that gives each individual player a value that contributes to total wins for a team and got pretty good results with it last season. He explains in his Oilers preview that after the top-3 forwards, the rest of the group would have ranked 31st in the league in this category.

 

[ConnorMcNugesaitl]

Out of it by early March.

Too late to be sellers, but not in a state to be buyers either.

There's not really much to sell anyways unless Kassian is having a good year, maybe Smith or Chiasson but nobody wanted Chiasson last year before he was on a bloated contract.

 

[Smartguy]

We have literally all the same unproven questions as last year, will rookies perform, will Mcdavid and Drai find chemistry with someone over a season for the first time since Maroon, do we have a starting goalie, do we have young defensemen who can take steps forward, do we have a bottom 6 who can contribute. I’m so sick of going into every season with that many questions instead of provens. Only once in the last 13 seasons have our players exceeded expectations.

With that said I think for first time in a long time this franchise actually starts to find legit options for those holes internally, a least a couple of them, as long as Mcdavid and Drai stay healthy I think we are in the hunt till March instead of Febuary this season

 

[nexttothemoon]

It's not predicting McDavid missing any time. It does take into account things like McDavid and Draisaitl regressing back to their average career shooting percentages for instance, which is a 25 goal decline from last year. Jonathon Willis also wrote a piece for the Athletic taking our goaltenders predicted 5-on-5 SV% based on age regression which predicts 20-25 goals more against than last year's total.
Dom uses a pretty interesting formula that gives each individual player a value that contributes to total wins for a team and got pretty good results with it last season. He explains in his Oilers preview that after the top-3 forwards, the rest of the group would have ranked 31st in the league in this category.

Well I guess they are assuming that the Oilers outside of the top 3 are going to have another near 31st finish... which I don't think will happen. I mean it could if everything goes bad again... but it's hard to imagine guys getting like 0/2/3/4 goals each in the bottom 6 yet again.

Here's the actual stats from last season...

Drai/McDavid/RNH/Chaisson/Kassian = 394 man games and 156 goals = .396 goals per game

The rest of the Oilers forwards = 588 man games and 43 goals = .073 goals per game (which works out to an average of 6 goals over a full 82 game season... which essentially means your bottom 7 forwards on the roster are only scoring at a 6 goal full season pace... ridiculously low).


I don't think the Oilers secondary scoring will be that bad again to only score 43 goals by effectively all the forwards from #6-14 on the roster.

I also think Smith should "easily" improve on what Talbot delivered to this team last year... I'm assuming he gives the team close to 91% goaltending and I'm assuming Koskinen gives them the same as he did last year... about 90.6% again. I'm also assuming we get about a 50-50 split in the net... which might be an incorrect assumption but if/when Smith plays reasonably well... I think Tippett (who is familiar with Smith).. will play Smith a little more than many people expect him to.

I am assuming some regression from Drai and McDavid as well... and I still see this team as a ~96 point team... and if someone steps up and surprises... they should/could be a 98+ point team.

I'm not factoring a "out of no-where" great season by Persson/Nygard/Benson etc... but my gut says we could have at least one solid surprise this year... but again I'm not using that in the projections.

Essentially I'm just assuming a trend back upwards towards the mean... which this team SHOULD be capable of... not quite to the levels of the "surprising" 16/17 season... but not as bad as the past 2 seasons either... and in the end I think they are in a dogfight for a wildcard spot this year at ~96 pts.