Take a look back at Edmonton Oilers history to see just how bad the team is off to a bad start in 2023–24 and what might happen at the end of the season.
To put it mildly, the Edmonton Oilers are terrible as of right now. When a team lacks confidence, nothing goes right and they constantly struggle to finish even the most basic of tasks.
The Oilers are so mentally fragile that even the slightest hint of hardship causes them to collapse. To put it plainly, this team is broke.
A comparison of the Oilers’ statistical standings with the other teams in the NHL as of Friday morning serves to emphasize the list of problems. Despite facing the eighth-fewest shots per game, they are dead last in terms of team save percentage and tied for second-last in terms of goals against average.
Desire more? (This is a rhetorical question because we will still be sharing more statistics.) The Oilers rank just twenty-first in face-off win percentage, have the eighth-worst penalty kill unit, and the fifth-highest number of penalty minutes.
Though we believe the point has been made now, we could go on. Speaking of points, the Oilers actually own the third-fewest in the NHL and, with just 25% of the regular season played, are already 10 points out of a postseason berth.
Comparing history
This brings us to the primary focus of this article: the historical comparison of the Oilers’ record. We are aware that 5-12-1 after 18 games is terrible, but to what extent is it terrible?
Note: The Oilers made their WHA debut in 1972–73. But we will only examine their NHL career, which started in 1979–1980.
Though it’s the tiniest of moral victories, the Oilers’ season hasn’t started any worse than it has. The following are the comparisons to the 2023–24 season after 18 games
It’s important to remember the 1979–80 season, which was the Oilers’ first in the NHL, in addition to 1993–94 having the worst start to a season in team history through 18 games. Even though this was back when 16 of the 21 teams qualified for the playoffs, they managed to recover from the bad start to make it.
In 1990–91, the only other season the Oilers qualified for the playoffs out of those mentioned, there was a similar qualification setup. Fans should be anxious about this season because they haven’t qualified on the four previous attempts.
In this vein, which are the Oilers’ worst-ever records in their NHL franchise history? We only took into account complete seasons for this; thus, we excluded the two lockout and one COVID-shortened campaign:
It should come as no surprise that the Oilers had little success in the postseason, only making it in during the previously mentioned 1979–80 campaign. Based on their 5-12-1 start to the season, it looks like they will have their worst record since joining the NHL.
Having only 50 points after 82 games—11 points through 18 games—would easily set a new record for the fewest points ever in a complete season. This helps you understand the shockingly low level of performance the Oilers have shown thus far considering the talent they possess.
Considering the future
Currently, the Oilers need to score 50 points in their final 64 games of the regular season to surpass the 60 points scored by the 1992–93 squad. (However, it should be noted that the 92–93 team participated in 84 games during the regular season.) This is equivalent to obtaining 39% of the remaining 128 points.
Fans of the Oilers have some hope because of the talent on the roster. But it does highlight how absurdly low the bar is when all we’re talking about is avoiding their lowest point total of the entire season.
All things considered, we are glad that the storyline that this is still (relatively) early in the season and that this team is more than capable of finding a hot streak and rising to prominence persists. (Recall the 15-0-1 record from the previous season, when they finished the regular season with nearly the same team.) But historically speaking, it seems unlikely that the Oilers will qualify for the postseason this year.
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