There have been a lot of games this season where the Edmonton Oilers have looked lethargic. Saturday (March 21) night’s 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Rogers Place was not one of them. And that’s what makes it so discouraging for fans of Oilers captain Connor McDavid and his teammates.
Saturday’s result had nothing to do with Edmonton lacking effort, intensity, or focus. The Oilers were defeated because they simply aren’t on the same level as Tampa Bay, one of the league’s best.
That’s a hard truth to swallow for an Edmonton team that has reached the Stanley Cup Final each of the last two postseasons and was expected to contend for a championship again this year. But after five months of mediocre hockey, it’s become painfully obvious that the 2025-26 edition of the Oilers are very average.
Oilers Struggle Against Top Teams
Edmonton is now 34-28-9, and full value for that record. With 77 points through 71 games, the Oilers rank 19th in the NHL, seventh in the Western Conference, and third in the Pacific Division.
With its loss to the Lightning, Edmonton has a record of 2-9-3 (including 0-6-1 at home) against the current top six teams in the overall NHL standings: the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Carolina Hurricanes, Buffalo Sabres, Minnesota Wild and Tampa Bay.
It’s not just that the Oilers can’t beat the league’s best, it’s that they haven’t even been able to keep things close: Eight of Edmonton’s nine regulation losses to the top six clubs have come by at least three goals. Over their 14 games against the top six teams, the Oilers have been outscored 68-32, a negative differential of more than 2.5 goals per game.
Turnaround Doesn’t Look Likely For Oilers
Fans in Edmonton have been waiting for the Oilers to turn things around and start looking like the powerhouse team of the last couple years. There’s a precedent: In both 2023-24 and 2024-25, the Oilers started the season poorly before getting on track and following that path all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.
Related: Breaking Down the Oilers’ Remaining Schedule
But by this stage in the last two seasons, Edmonton had long since found its form and been playing at an elite level for months. Through 71 games in 2024-25 and 2025-26, the Oilers had 87 and 92 points, respectively.
Meanwhile, with only 11 games remaining on their schedule, the 2025-26 Oilers continue to flounder. They have won more than two games in a row just once, and don’t have a winning streak longer than three games. If Edmonton was going to turn the corner, it surely would have happened by now.
Why Has Edmonton Taken a Step Back
There are a few possible reasons why the Oilers just aren’t on the same level this season. One is that, after playing more than 100 games (including preseason, regular season and playoffs) each of the last four seasons, they may just have run out of gas.
From 2021-22 to 2024-25, including regular season and playoffs, Edmonton played a total of 403 games, the most among Western Conference teams by a wide margin, and second in the NHL to only the Florida Panthers. In 2023-24 and 2024-25, the Oilers and Panthers each played a total of 211 games in the regular season and playoffs. Besides Dallas (203 games), no other team played more than 190 games over the last two regular seasons and postseasons combined.
It should be noted that Florida, after years of dominance, has also fallen on hard times this season and will almost certainly miss the playoffs. Florida, however, has been waylaid by injuries. The Oilers have dealt with injury issues too, most recently losing superstar forward Leon Draisaitl for the rest of the regular season, but not to the same degree.
More than anything, Edmonton’s roster isn’t what it was. Of the 22 players who suited up for the Oilers in the 2025 Stanley Cup Final, nine are now on other NHL teams. The Oilers haven’t been able to replace the intangibles provided by forwards Connor Brown and Corey Perry, who both departed via free agency, and the December trade that sent defenceman Brett Kulak and goaltender Stuart Skinner to the Pittsburgh Penguins for netminder Tristan Jarry has proven disastrous. Meanwhile, top veteran blueliners Mattias Ekholm and Darnell Nurse have regressed, the latter especially.
Oilers Benefit From Playing in Pacific
Despite all this, the Oilers could yet make another lengthy playoff run. That’s because they’re lucky enough to play in arguably the weakest divisions of recent NHL history.
The Anaheim Ducks currently sit atop the Pacific Division with just 82 points, while the Vegas Golden Knights are in second place with a mere 78 points. For perspective, 82 points would be no better than fourth place in any of the NHL’s other three divisions, while 78 points would be seventh place in both Eastern Conference divisions.
If the Oilers were to meet either of Anaheim or Vegas in a seven-game series, they would likely be favoured, as they would against any of the other Pacific Division teams pushing for a playoff spot: the Los Angeles Kings (73 points), Seattle Kraken (71 points) and San Jose Sharks (70 points). Thus, it’s quite conceivable that even this version of the Oilers could get through the first two rounds in the Pacific Division, advancing to the Western Conference Final for a fourth time in five years.
It’s also not inconceivable that the Oilers end up missing the postseason for the first time since 2019. Their lead over the fourth-place team in the division, Los Angeles, is just four points, and the Kings have a game in hand. If the Oilers were to drop out of the top three spots in the Pacific Division, they would need to clinch a playoff berth via one of the two wild card spots. Currently, the second wild card spot is held by the Nashville Predators, who have 75 points and also have a game in hand on Edmonton.
This is the level the Oilers now find themselves. They aren’t in the class of Stanley Cup contenders such as Tampa Bay. They’re in the middle of the pack with the likes of the Predators. Not bad, by any means, just not great: an average team.
