Goaltending, scoring depth should be a strength for the Edmonton Oilers during the playoffs

The Edmonton Oilers are all set for the playoffs, and they’re guaranteed to have a familiar matchup and face one of the two teams that they did in last year’s playoffs with the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights duking it out for the final playoff spot in the Pacific Division.

But will the problems that nearly lost them the series against the Kings or resulted in their loss to the Golden Knights return this season? Jason Gregor joined Daily Faceoff Live to talk about why he thinks the Oilers are in a much better spot this season, especially in terms of goaltending and offensive depth.

Jason Gregor: Stuart Skinner’s learned a lot about from the goaltending perspective. I had a really good chat with him a few weeks ago, he said he was never immensely fatigued. There’s some mental things that he will do differently this year, like on a morning skate, he’ll leave the ice earlier, not because he was physically fatigued but because it allows him more time away from the rink to relax and not be worrying about things as much.

As for the balanced scoring, from year to year you never know, but if you look at Zach Hyman’s season, I would think he’s going to produce more. If you just look up and down the Oilers lineup and Corey Perry, Adam Henrique and Warren Foegle scoring more this season, I think they have a lot of guys who can produce more. Connor Brown has finally woke up after a season-long hibernation, so if he could chip in one goal in a series or one of Mattias Janmark or Sam Carrick.

And there’s their defense. They’re the only team currently with three defenseman who have scored 10 goals this season in Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and Darnell Nurse, so they’ve got some goal-scoring prowess from the back end.

I think Edmonton’s a better team this year than they were last year, and I think they learned from last year. Goaltending was an issue, but so was team defense. The Oilers had the lead in every game that series and couldn’t hold the lead because they didn’t play smart.

You can watch the full episode here…