Well actually, yes, I do expect them to fall apart in the second half. They are a 2 person team, with terrible underlying 5v5 stats, who rely on a historically good PP to score goals. That combination of statistics doesn't breed long-term success.
They haven't fallen apart in the 1st half so far... and yes I'm including this recent stretch of 4 straight losses.. which every team goes through at some stage... including Boston recently who were close to unbeatable previous to that.
Oilers best two players are McDavid and Draisaitl... that isn't news and we all knew that the team would lean on them hard before the season began and sure enough they have come up big (even though some are crapping on Drai and even on McD)... but the team also has a solid PP and PK and goaltending has been above average as well... and at times excellent.
They have gotten some solid D when the lineup has been healthy... honestly their best D-group was Nurse-Bear-Klefbom-Persson-KRussell-Benning and since that group hasn't been together, the team hasn't looked quite as good... which I don't think is a coincidence as every piece had a specific role and they seemed to all be playing slightly better in those pairings... "sum is better than the parts situation".
Koskinen has at times looked nearly Vezina level... Smith at times has looked good, other times decent and other times poor.. but still overall a decent backup when you take his entire season into consideration.
Kassian is on pace for 50+ pts
Neal is on pace for 40+ pts
Klefbom is on pace for ~50 pts
Nurse is on pace for almost 40 pts
RNH is having a down year so far but was still on pace for ~50 pts before he was injured
Chiasson started very slow but is on pace for nearly 30 pts now which is probably close to what many expected from him.
Bear is on pace for 20+ pts... most didn't expect that from him when the season started. (I know I certainly didn't expect him to have played all 36 games for the Oilers so far).
Gagner in spot duty is almost .5 pts per game... not bad for a player they really don't give a lot of minutes to.
Has there been some mediocre players/disappointing offensive seasons so far... sure... just like with most teams...
Archibald... 1 pt in 27 games... has to be better.
Sheahan... 2 pts in 31 games... has to be better.
P Russell... 4 pts in 27 games... has to be better (but I didn't expect a lot from him either as he doesn't have a lot of offense in his repertoire) .
Granlund 4 pts in 29 games... has to be better.
Nygard... 5 pts in 19 games... should be better but still a full season pace of 22 pts which isn't horrendous as he's adjusting to the NHL. My guess is his 2nd half is better than the 1st half.
Haas... 7 pts in 28 games.., much like Nygard, he should be better but again I think he's done ok in limited minutes as he adjusts to the NHL. Like Nygard, I expect a better 2nd half than the 1st.
Khaira... 6 pts (all goals) in 34 games. Started out extremely slow... but if he ends up with ~12+ goals... I think you'd have to be reasonably pleased with that as everyone on that bottom 6 group should have 10+ goals as their target.
Jones and Larsson haven't impressed me either but one is a rookie who I think needs more time in the AHL (Lagesson/Persson should be up with the team) and the other is coming off an injury who looks like he might finally be coming around to playing slightly better.
So ya... the team is a mixed bag... pretty much what we expected when the season began... yet they have been in a playoff spot since day 1 of the season and remain there now.
I think they are more than a 2 man team... because they have a solid PK and decent goaltending this year and that alone makes them a better team.
GF/game and GA/game are both slightly better than last season.
Special teams are both top 5 and have pretty much been that way all season long (PK has slipped slightly but is again top 5).
If people want to only focus on the negative and ignore that the Oilers are a competitive team and right there with all the top teams in the West (6 pts back of 1st in the West and 2 pts back of 1st in the Pacific... sure, take that negative outlook.
Looking at it realistically though... if you told people here they'd be leading the West at the start of the season... leading the Pacific until ~30 game mark and just 2 pts off the Pacific lead at game #36... most if not all would have been pretty happy being told that in September.
The team is competitive and shows more resilience (as evidenced by the number of comebacks throughout the season... win or lose).
It's not an easy league to win in and putting up long winning streaks is very difficult when every team on any given night can beat you... so I'm realistically optimistic with what the team has shown so far... especially when there's still solid upside considering some players haven't shown as much as I think they could (Archibald/Nygard/Haas etc).
