Are the 2024-2025 Edmonton Oilers the biggest preseason cup favourites of all time?

[thaman8765678]

They are significantly worse than last year. And last year took a historical post season of good luck to make the finals.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Edmonton is a flawed team like we were in the Pizza Line era. Just two super-scorers and a middling supporting cast is not enough to win a Cup, let alone be a contender. We had Alfredsson at least, who was a two-way beast.

Oilers are missing:
A Selke-level forward. This could be McDrai if either of them were willing to shave their points total for the greater good.
A Norris-level "D". Bouchard might be this...some day, but right now he is still growing into himself.
Vezina-level "G": Not a chance here. Pray Skinner can be average and steal some games.

Overall age and team speed is a concern as well. This looks like the last chance for this core; McDrai will be beloved forever by the Oil fanbase but other teams are at various levels of improvement and won't roll out a red carpet for them come playoff time.

Middling support cast? What do people expect? It's a capped league. I think their support cast is pretty good. I'd take Edmonton's support over a team like Toronto where a GM and pres. are totally clueless and don't know the hell they are doing.

 

[Fatass]

Avs, Oilers, Canucks. Teams predicted to be good all have questions about goaltending.

 

[jonlin]

Avs, Oilers, Canucks. Teams predicted to be good all have questions about goaltending.

Avs also has other problems. Landy, Nichuskin and Lehkonen abscent. Thats 50% of their Top6

 

[Coffey]

Do people on here ever learn?

Nope. Same doofuses that lived in the 180 page "Oilers suck" thread last year are currently like a pig in shit here.

 

[McJedi]

And there you go. Oilers somehow decided they'd upgraded from Ceci with Emberson based on 30 games Emberson played last year where his underlying stats were pretty meager.

Last night... Two worst skaters on the oilers by a wide margin were Nurse and Emberson. The 3rd pair didn't play well either. Kulak and Dermott also played poorly.

How can a team be an overwhelming favorite when four of their six defenders stink and the goalie is a guy named Jeff Skinner absolutely no hockey person would place in their top 20 NHL goalie rankings?

Which teams with below average defense and goaltending have ever dominated an NHL season?

HockeyStatCards.com

If there was any good news, the Oilers bottom six (Brown and Janmark in particular), continue to play well as carryover from the playoffs.

But you know who else looked real good in game one? Broberg and Holloway. Things the Oilers lost in the fire.

 

[Cup or Bust]

I think the year the Avalanche signed Kariya and Selanne, everyone pretty much handed the Cup to Colorado before the season began, actually it was hard to think otherwise, the team was stacked. It did not work out though. The Oilers were considered top Cup contenders last season and are again this season. I fully expect them to be again as well and last season was the first season I ever considered the McDavid Oilers Cup contenders.

 

[Joe Hallenback]

They will be fine. Its one game and those home openers seem to kill the home teams. They have some warts but once McDrai get rolling it will cover them up.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

this will be fun to read just like that "Oilers look bad" thread from last November that eventually needed to be locked because they won 16 in a row lol
people never learn

we lost 8-1 last year in the opener and started 2-9-1...this is nothing

 

[Coffey]

this will be fun to read just like that "Oilers look bad" thread from last November that eventually needed to be locked because they won 16 in a row lol
people never learn

we lost 8-1 last year in the opener and started 2-9-1...this is nothing

Hockey fans have goldfish memories when it's easy to "pwn" their rivals.

 

[Cup or Bust]

It is legitimate to say the Oilers need another solid defenseman on the right side and every indication is they full intend to pursue one come deadline time and have even positioned themselves for that type of move. Also Skinner is a questionable goalie some of the time and he was not very good last night but people need to stop jumping the gun based on one game, especially at the start of the season.

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

Literally every article I've read it's been Oilers all across the board. I don't recall seeing one team being such an overwhelming preseason favourite. Can you?

Lmao they started off well.

 

[Oneiro]

I know the near comeback and recovering into the playoff birth were something, but if anything, all it shows you is that will and desire are incredibly important parts of the game. Is this a turning point for the organization or did they exhaust their nine lives?

My guess is they're not that good. They had a nice bit of luck in the early rounds and that DAL team lost steam and got banged up. It truly sucks that COL and DAL had to face off in the 2nd round.

 

[Rubi]

I think it's pretty obvious from last night's game the Oilers need more offense in order to be successful. 60 minutes of play and they failed to score a single goal! More! They need more!

 

[Muffin]

this will be fun to read just like that "Oilers look bad" thread from last November that eventually needed to be locked because they won 16 in a row lol
people never learn

we lost 8-1 last year in the opener and started 2-9-1...this is nothing

I feel like hoping you can climb out of being last place in the league every season isn't a sustainable strategy...

 

[waitin425]

Solid start to their Stanley Cup run.

 

[McJedi]

I think the Oilers and their fans underestimated the let-down effect of playing such a long season where they come up just two goals short, then a short off-season, and having to restart all the way back at square one with the rest of the NHL. That's a huge drop and it's daunting.

Their offseason was only so-so. Huge they resigned Drai, but at zero discount. The shock offer-sheets stole two support pieces and they otherwise lost a ton of speed, durability, youth and size. McLeod is a good 3C. He was replaced by a small prospect that was probably over drafted and of little to no use in the final year of the cheap deals for Drai and Bouchard. It only gets much harder next year to fill this roster.

Those former Oilers were replaced poorly on the backend with Emberson and Dermott... and questionably at forward with aging players like Skinner and the injury prone Viktor Arvidsson.

Some of you looked at this as a roster upgrade over last season. Others of us didn't see it that way. I think the Oilers are worse today and also missing the type of pieces that make for effective playoff hockey performers. Frankly, I'd rather have guys like Foegele, Holloway and McLeod flying up and down the ice puck hounding than floaters like Skinner and Arvidsson looking for goals. You don't score much in the playoffs if you don't have the puck.

 

[Video Nasty]

I’d rather not see the team need to dig itself out of another early hole, but they’ll be fine.

 

[WillTheThrill]

Some gaping holes on this years Oilers, particularly in net and on the back end. I don't see it!

 

[Chuck Norris Trophy]

Yeah it was just one game but man that was brutal.

 

[LuGBuG]

As an Oilers hater are you posters seriously dumb enough to be writing them off after one game again……

Figured you would have learned from that thread last year but here we are….