After another disappointing post-season, there’s going to be plenty of focus on what went wrong this year for the Edmonton Oilers and the many mistakes that have led to zero cups in the Connor McDavid era. But the issues like the roster construction, the coaching, the tactics, the penalty kill, goaltending, and so forth – these are all symptoms of larger, systemic issues. And until the Oilers address the system, they’ll continue to cycle through the same problems – no matter who’s the general manager, behind the bench or on the roster.

If the goal is to become a consistent contender, not just a hopeful one, the organization needs to be clear on a small set of strategies it must do exceptionally well—year after year. From my own professional experience and time analyzing the game, I keep coming back to four:

• Drafting well is obviously at the foundation of sustainable contenders. It’s about identifying players with playoff-caliber traits – think skating, skill, competitiveness, adaptability, or whatever shows a stronger correlation to winning games. Not every pick is going to be a superstar, but they have to eventually cover roles across your program (at the NHL level and minor leagues). Drafting well reduces uncertainty and helps create asset leverage.
• Development is where potential becomes value. It’s about helping young players improve so they can fill important roles, but this also involves efficient evaluation to determine whether this player is “real” and on track or not. Getting this step right and translating information into team-friendly contracts gives an organization a massive competitive advantage.
• Derisk is about supplementing the roster with reliable, interchangeable players who can help mitigate uncertainty. It protects against injuries, stalled development and the volatility that comes up in the regular season and playoffs. More importantly, it prevents panic decisions—the kind that led to long-term deals driven by reputation and urgency.
• Deployment involves taking the previous three strategies and turning them into actual outcomes by leaning on solid coaching, tactics, and execution. Get the right players in the right roles, build the right combinations and be ready to adapt when things happen or new information emerges. Roles should be based on impact and strong evidence, not reputation.

In simple terms: Drafting creates options. Development creates information. Derisking manages uncertainty. And deployment converts the surplus into wins.

Now none of these strategies are possible without the right enablers, which I’ve summarized below. Strategy is only as good as the organization’s ability to execute it, and it’s critical that the Oilers get these right.

• People: Teams that contend for championships prioritize strong judgment over historical reputation. Management, amateur and pro scouts, development staff, cap analysts, and coaches need to be aligned—especially at key decision points like the draft, trade deadlines, and contracts.
• Technology and data: The right tools can help build your organizations knowledge and insights and reduces reliance on anecdotal evidence and recency bias. Think video, player tracking and the infrastructure behind it all. And data exists to reduce decision errors by identifying the metrics that matter (i.e., correlates to goals and wins), track development curves, define performance indicators and separate usage effects from results. It helps inform a team’s decision-making process.
• Governance: This has to do with clarity on who decides, when and with what inputs. Think parameters and key guiding principles that you would want the front office to abide by to protect the organization from long term ramifications (like long term, buyout proof contracts for power forwards over thirty).

This framework of strategies and enablers doesn’t guarantee championships, but it does instill organizational discipline that (1) improves a team’s odds of winning and (2) correct things faster when things inevitably go wrong.

The Edmonton Oilers have been making progress in some areas of the framework. They have found ways to derisk through some trades and signings and have invested in data analytics and technology to support decision-making at the draft and trade deadlines. But the results suggest major inconsistencies across the rest of the framework. The front office has struggled to build a competitive roster around their star players – largely due to poor drafting and developing, panic signings and trades, and very risk-averse coaching. And this all then leads back to the same conversations about the Oilers off-season – goaltending, penalty kill, team defence, and so forth.

In the modern-day NHL, championships aren’t won by simply assembling talent and hoping for the best. They’re won by organizations that have a repeatable strategy—one that consistently creates value, manages risk, and adapts. For a team like the Edmonton Oilers, competing for championships year after year requires more than just elite stars; it requires strong organizational alignment, discipline, and process. And the Oilers need to address these systemic issues if they realistically want to get things back on track.

Quick follow up to an article I wrote a few weeks ago when I looked into Adam Henrique’s struggles this season. I had found that while his even-strength numbers and overall productivity have predictably declined, he was at the time having a positive influence on the team’s penalty kill. And I speculated that the Oilers penalty kill would struggle without him.

Turned out I was correct, but not for the exact reasons I had based my prediction on.

In the first 43 games of the season with Henrique healthy, the Oilers penalty kill was fairly mediocre. They were sitting 17th in the league, allowing 7.52 goals against per hour. They were allowing a lot of shots and chances against, and the goaltending was actually decent, ranking 10th with an 86 percent save percentage. But with Henrique deployed, which was the most often among forwards, the rate of shots and goals against plummeted.

So his absence was fairly substantial, and the Oilers did see their penalty kill struggle severely without him. In those 15 games with Henrique unavailable, the Oilers allowed 13 goals against per hour (12 goals in 55 minutes) – one of the highest rates in the league and a big reason why the team struggled to bank some points. What’s interesting is that the team did an okay job preventing shots against. It was actually the goaltending that completely fell apart, posting a 76 percent save percentage.

I was also curious to see how Knoblauch and the coaching staff would spread Henrique’s penalty kill minutes among the forwards. Considering Knoblauch’s lack of overall creativity with deployment and tactics, I wasn’t expecting much.

The table here lists all of the penalty killing forwards this season, sorted by their share of the total penalty kill time in the first term (the first 43 games when Henrique was healthy). Term two is the 15-game segment when Henrique was injured and unavailable. I’ve also added a column to capture the change in each players proportion in the second term compared to the first term.

So for example, Master Savoie played in 35.7 percent of the Oilers total penalty killing time when Henrique was healthy. In the second term, his total proportion slid slightly to 34.8 percent. There really was no reason to reduce his minutes considering the team does see fewer shots against when he’s out there – a great sign for the kid’s development.

The two forwards Knoblauch relied more on for the penalty kill was Janmark and McDavid. Janmark made sense as he has a lot of experience on the penalty kill and a safe bet for a risk-averse coach (even though the team sees way more shots and chances against with him on the ice). The significant increase in McDavid’s proportion of PK ice time is a little weird. Having him play the last bit of the penalty kill when the other team’s best forwards are getting a rest makes sense. But this many minutes at a real time of need reeks of panic and a lack of planning by the coaching staff. Would have preferred Podkolzin or Lazar getting more reps. Or even Mangiapane, but he’s clearly fallen out of favor with the coach.

Thankfully Henrique is back now and should help stabilize the penalty kill (and really that’s all he can do at this stage of his career). But the coaching staff, and the front office, should really have a plan in place just in case they need to move Henrique to improve the team’s depth’s performance at equal-strength.

Data: Natural Stat Trick

Below are the even-strength (5v5) numbers for each team in the western conference (sorted by points percentage), including goal-differential results as well as the shot-share metrics that give us a sense of which teams have the right processes in place and if the results are sustainable or not. At the end of the table are each team’s shooting percentage and save percentage. I’ve also applied a basic heat map to each metric to show which teams are doing well or struggling relative to their conference foes (i.e., green is good, red is bad). You can also find a description of each metric at the end of this article. Please note that the shot-share metrics are score and venue adjusted based on Natural Stat Trick’s methodology.

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Nothing else to add other than what I already posted here the other night. And no significant changes since my last western conference summary. The Pacific division is so weak right now, which makes the Oilers general malaise even more annoying. Like Vegas just got thrashed 5-0 against Pittsburgh this afternoon and Los Angeles just made another coaching change. Seattle and San Jose are phonies. And Calgary and Vancouver are, well, Calgary and Vancouver.

I know I just recently wrote about a more hybrid approach to the deadline, but it’s too tempting to just go all-in again when the path to the western conference finals looks pretty clear. The team did put Regula and Mangiapane on waivers this afternoon to get some flexibility, so something is definitely brewing.

Data: Natural Stat Trick