The Oilers' defence is actually pretty decent. People are writing about it on here like it's garbage, but it isn't.
Bouchard and Eckholm are, like, the best pairing in the Western Conference. God, I wish Eckholm was about six years younger. But we'll take what we can. (Fun fact: Eckholm scored 1 fewer even strength point that Steven Stamkos last season.)
Broberg and Nurse (if that lasts) are so-so. Broberg suddenly jumped up to NHL-ready level in the playoffs against tough competition, so we all assume he'll be a regular from next season. And he seems to be the only guy who can play with Nurse and not look really bad. (They're both lefties, unfortunately.) Nurse was kind of 'off' all last year, and he was dreadful in the first three rounds of the playoffs. If he can get back even to his 2022-23 level, they're fine.
Ceci - Kulak is okay -- not great, but okay. I actually like both these players quite a bit. (Ceci suddenly looked great when he wasn't paired with Nurse.) As a bottom pairing, they're quite good.
The fly in the ointment, of course, is Nurse and his cap-eating contract. However, I suspect the club will make at least one major move on defense before the season starts.
The D is good.
They were something like 4th lowest goals against in the regular season under Knoblaugh for like 70 games.
In the playoffs of teams that played past round 1 they had the second lowest goals against, just a hair below the Florida Panthers. They had a lower goals against in the playoffs than the Rangers with Shesterkin playing out of his mind.
In the Finals head to head against Florida, the Oilers allowed fewer goals against than the Panthers did.
Now the question is how is that happening, how is that possible, that's a fair ask. One I would say Ekholm is probably the most underrated D in the league, he should have been in the Norris conversation.
Secondly, Knoblaugh (and his staff Coffey + Stuart) was the best coach in the NHL last year (he won't win coach of the year, but he should). He completely changed the Oilers defensive zone structure, their PK went from garbage to elite to unbelievable in the playoffs, and in every one of the 4 rounds, the Oilers were able to grind all of LA, Vancouver, Dallas, and even Florida's offense to a trickle the longer those series went on.
LA scored at a 1.3 goals per game rate from in game 3/4/5 (lost in 5).
Dallas scored at a 1.3 goals per game rate in game 4/5/6 (lost in 6).
Vancouver scored at a 1.75 goals per game rate in game 4/5/6/7 (lost in 7)
Florida even scored at a 1.75 goals per game rate in game 4/5/6/7 (were able to eek it out in 7).
All four opponents had their GA choked out to under 2 goals per game by the later half of the series. To me this shows a coaching staff that was successfully making adjustments the longer each one of these series' went along, if you're holding teams to under 2 goals per the back half of every series you're giving yourself a chance to win on D alone. Knoblaugh and his staff did an outstanding job with the D, there's no other way to slice it. It also shows coaching is incredibly important for how a D performs.
