The NHL’s hottest team showed no signs of slowing down Sunday (Dec. 10), as the Edmonton Oilers extended their winning streak to seven games with a 4-1 matinee victory over the New Jersey Devils at Rogers Place.
Playing one of their most fundamentally sound games this season, the Oilers led 1-0 after the first period and took a 2-0 lead into the second intermission.
Goaltender Calvin Pickard made 26 saves for the Oilers, who got goals from Evan Bouchard, Evander Kane, Connor McDavid and Derek Ryan. Devils winger Jesper Bratt scored his team’s only goal of the afternoon.
After starting the season 2-9-1 and falling eight points out of the wild card in the Western Conference, the Oilers have gone 10-3-0 in their last 13 games to pull within three points of a playoff spot.
Edmonton is 9-3-0 overall and 7-0-0 at home since Nov. 12 when it relieved head coach Jay Woodcroft and assistant coach Dave Manson of their duties and replaced them with Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey, respectively.
The Oilers are now 25 games into their 2023-24 schedule, with a record of 12-12-1. Here are three takeaways from the Oilers’ latest triumph in downtown Edmonton.
Pickard Plays Solid Between the Pipes
Pickard picked up his first win as an Oiler and his first win in the NHL since Jan. 28, 2022, when he backstopped the Detroit Red Wings to a shootout victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins. He was making only his second start for the Oilers and seeing his first game action in two and a half weeks. Stuart Skinner had started Edmonton’s previous seven games, including the first six games of the Oilers’ current win streak.
Since being recalled from the American Hockey League (AHL) on Nov. 8, Pickard has been rock solid for Edmonton, albeit with very limited duty, posting a 2.24 goals-against average (GAA) and .918 save percentage (SV%) in three appearances.
Related: 5 Things to Know About Oilers’ Goalie Call-Up Calvin Pickard
Pickard’s stay in Edmonton was thought to be for just a stint while struggling veteran Jack Campbell got back on track in Bakersfield. More than a month later, however, Campbell is still going through ups and downs and hasn’t exactly made a compelling case for his return, so Pickard could be in Edmonton for some time yet.
The sample size is too small to safely say Pickard can fill the role of backup goalie in Edmonton over the long term, and the Oilers’ goaltending dynamic hinges on whether Skinner can provide starter-caliber goaltending game after game, week after week, and month after month. After all, the original plan for Edmonton this season was to roll with Campbell and Skinner as a 1A/1B tandem. But for the moment, at least, things are working out.
Bouchard Leads Oilers’ Improved Blue Line
A big reason Pickard gave up just one goal on Sunday was how well the Oilers played in their own zone. Edmonton’s blueliners did a great job cutting down on rebound opportunities and getting the puck out of their zone.
That’s a far cry from the defensive dumpster fire that Pickard found himself playing behind during his first two games with the Oilers, Nov. 20 against the Florida Panthers and Nov. 22 against the Carolina Panthers. At that point, the Oilers were allowing 4.00 goals per game. In the seven games since, all wins, Edmonton has given up just 12 goals total.
No one epitomizes the Oilers’ improvements on defence more than Bouchard. He’s playing much smarter on the back end and has significantly cut down on his mistakes that seemingly resulted in a goal against nearly every game during the early part of the season.
This is a major step for Bouchard, who has always had outstanding offensive ability even while being a liability on the back end. If he can bring the defensive side of his game up to par, Bouchard will be an all-star.
Bouchard’s offensive output certainly hasn’t suffered because of increased focus on defending. With his goal Sunday, he now has a point in 11 straight games, tying Coffey for the franchise’s second-longest streak for points by a defenceman in a single season. Coffey also has the longest such streak in Oilers history, an incredible 28 games in 1985-86.
Oilers Stepping Up on Special Teams
Edmonton went one-for-three with the man advantage on Sunday, getting a key power-play goal from Bouchard at 14:20 of the second period. The blueliner’s eighth goal of the season put his team ahead 2-0 to give the Oilers some breathing room going into the third period.
Most impressive for the Oilers, however, was their penalty kill, which went four-for-four against the league’s most dangerous team on the man advantage. The Devils came into the game with a power-play success rate of 34.2%, first in the NHL by a wide margin.
While short-handed, Edmonton kept the Devils largely to the outside, preventing Grade A scoring chances. This was the first time in 25 games this season that New Jersey had more than three power-play opportunities and failed to score at least one goal with the man advantage.
After Edmonton gave up 18 power play goals in its first 17 games, the Oilers have killed off 28 of 29 penalties over their last eight games, which further speaks to how much better the team is defensively.
Edmonton continues its six-game homestand tomorrow night (Dec. 12), when it hosts the Chicago Blackhawks at Rogers Place.