G79 2024-25: Sharks at Oilers

The Oilers drafted a terrific prospect in Jeff Petry 20 years ago, he emerged as a quality defender over most of the last two decades. He’s currently just shy of 1,000 NHL games and should be regarded as one of Edmonton’s greatest draft picks outside the first round. Ever.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN APRIL

• On the road to: VEG, SJS, LAK, ANA (Expected 2-2-0) (Actual 2-2-0)
• At home to: STL, SJS (Expected 1-0-1) (Actual 1-0-0)
• On the road to: WPG (Expected 0-1-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• At home to: LAK (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• On the road to: SJS (Expected 1-0-0) (Actual 0-0-0)
• Overall expected results: 5-3-1, 11 points in 9 games
• April result: 3-2-0
• Current record: 45-28-5, 95 points in 78 games

A win tonight makes a 100-point season for the Oilers possible based on the rest of the schedule. Edmonton has finished with 100+ points nine times previously, those seasons coming in two clusters. The first came 1982-1987 and included three Stanley Cup winning teams. The second cluster is ongoing, having started in 2021-22.

BROTHERS BECOME DISTANT COUSINS

One of the problems with changing managers and coaches constantly is that brothers become distant cousins when there is a change at the top. So, Jeff Petry was drafted by Kevin Lowe (GM), Craig MacTavish (Coach) and Kevin Prendergast (scouting director). By the time he was about to sign a long-term deal, MacT was the GM, the coaching job was changing a mile a minute and Stu MacGregor was the scouting director.

Once the Petry trade was made, there was a hole on defense because all of the $4 million guys were old and or slow. So, the incoming GM cast about and traded Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson, partly because Hall was from a previous administration (Tambellini, Renney, MacGregor).

We see it plenty in Edmonton because there’s so much changeover in the important spots. If you look at the Oilers recent draft history, most of the chosen players who will approach 1,000 games (Ryan McLeod, Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg, maybe Mike Kesselring) in this era will play those games in other NHL cities.

Which brings us to Evan Bouchard and Stuart Skinner. They are (along with Vasily Podkolzin and Ty Emberson) the “youth” on this Oilers team.

I’m not sure what Stan Bowman has in mind for summer procurement, but it’s possible both Bouchard and Skinner are sent away for more experienced players who have less chaos in their game.

One day, this organization is going to wake up and find itself old, slow and without a single Stanley. It’s sad, actually.

Today on the Lowdown (Sports 1440, starts at noon) we’ll be joined by the usual suspects (Steve Lansky, Tyler Yaremchuk, Declan Krueger with Declanations) and enjoy the warmth of the sun. We’ll talk about the most confusing Oilers season in decades, and ponder what may come. I’m at Lowetide on twitter, in the comments section here and on the Sports 1440 text line at 1.833.401.1440 directly. We can be heard at sports1440.ca; iHeartRadio, Radioplayer Canada, it’s available post-show on apple and spotify, and we tweet it out on X.