I started tracking the Edmonton Oilers Goals for and against in 5 game chunks. After the bad start of the 2024-2025 season, it was a little dissapointing after the game 7 final.
The idea was to see if they were trending in the right direction, but I needed something to compare it to. I decided to use the regular season final goals for and against from last year.
I don’t know about you, but I would consider losing a tight game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals, after battling for top spot in the division, to be a “good season”. This feels like a good target to shoot for at minimum.
I came up with the following chart that I will continually update as the season progresses:
It looks complicated, but allow me to explain:
- Each dot is the average over that 5 game stretch of the season.
- Blue Line is the average number of Goals the Oilers scored in that 5 game stretch.
- Red Line is the average number of Goals scored against the Oilers over that 5 game stretch (including empty netters)
- Blue and Red dotted lines and zones represent 2024 total averages that we are comparing to
Comparing to 2023-2024
The Goals For Line (Blue Dotted Line) represents the 2023-2024 total average regular season goals for which was 3.6 per game.
The Goals Against Line (Red Dotted Line) represents the total 2023-2024 total average regular season goals against which was 2.8 per game.
How to Read the Chart:
To keep it simple, blue line up = good, red line down = good.
The first 10 games shows the Oilers rough start. The 2 lines are inverted the wrong way. The Oilers struggled to score and they got scored on a lot. Bad combination.
Games 26-30 has a nice blue spike up and a nice red spike down. This is what a winning streak looks like when everything is going great. Scoring goals and solid goaltending at the same time.
Some Takeaways
The goaltending tandem has taken some heat this season from some fans, but using this chart you can identify a possible goaltending issue for the first 10 or so games, but gets back on track the rest of the way.
This doesn’t specify who is to be praised or criticized more, Skinner or Pickard, but we can go deeper into those metrics in a different post, stay tuned.
The Edmonton Oilers rely heavily on offence, which struggled at the start of the season, especially the weak power play, but it slowly improved as the season progressed, though it still can be better.