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Edmonton Oilers GM not panicking over team’s slow start

2017 NHL Awards - Media Availability

LAS VEGAS, NV - JUNE 20: General manager Peter Chiarelli of the Edmonton Oilers is interviewed during media availability for the 2017 NHL Awards at Encore Las Vegas on June 20, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

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As most teams hit the 20-game mark you have to do some extra scrolling to find the Edmonton Oilers while looking at the overall NHL standings.

A Stanley Cup favorite after a nice run last spring, the Oilers have only 16 points in 19 games. Only the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes currently have fewer points. A number of things have gone against Edmonton so far. There’s that negative-11 goal differential and the 73.4 percent penalty kill. There’s also the lack of secondary scoring, or scoring in general with their average down to 2.47 goals per game. Meanwhile, Jordan Eberle is enjoying his time in Brooklyn.

Speaking from the general manager’s meetings in Montreal on Friday, Peter Chiarelli described his thoughts on the slow start as “general disappointment.”

Via Michael Traikos of the National Post:

“For me, it goes back to where our mindset was in terms of managing expectations,” Chiarelli said. “We fell behind the eight ball at the start for a number of reasons. Execution was one of them, and now you’re in that recovery mode and you lose runway. So that’s where we are right now.

“I’m not putting blame for our record on (the pressure of meeting expectations), but I think it’s something that we needed to address and we did. And maybe we didn’t do a good enough job of it.”


There are a few things in Edmonton’s favor as they attempt to dig themselves out of this whole. First, they have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Second, their possession numbers are good as shown by a league-best 55 percent Fenwick, via Corsica. Then there’s their 98.12 PDO, which tells you they’ve been a bit unlucky at times. And despite their slide, the Oilers are only four points out of both a Western Conference wild card spot and third place in the Pacific Division.

Chiarelli already made one move to try and help their scoring woes by acquiring Mike Cammalleri, who’s enjoyed a nice start to the season. If things don’t improve, you can bet more trade attempts will be made by the GM because if you take a look at their salary cap picture over at CapFriendly, it won’t get any easier to build a contender.

This is the cheapest the Oilers will ever have McDavid, who will see his cap hit go from $925,000 to $12.5 million for 2018-19. Then you have the numbers of restricted and unrestricted free agents after this season. If initial reports of NHL revenues hold, we could see the salary cap ceiling rise a decent amount in the off-season, which could be beneficial.

Of course, other GMs aren’t going to bail Chiarelli out without helping themselves first, so the Oilers can’t rely solely on trades in order for their season to turnaround.

“All of the teams in the league need more help,” Chiarelli said. “But at this point, these guys have to figure it out also.”

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Sean Leahy is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.