{"id":583886,"date":"2026-04-05T13:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/583886\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T13:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T13:44:12","slug":"the-edmonton-oilers-defensive-awareness-never-more-critical-than-when-its-big-guns-are-silent-9-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/583886\/","title":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Oilers defensive awareness never more critical than when its big guns are silent: 9 Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> need to make sure that what happened to them against Las Vegas on Saturday is a one-off.<\/p>\n

And time is of the essence.<\/p>\n

That and more in this edition of\u2026<\/p>\n

9 Things<\/p>\n

9. It is not just your imagination that there is a lot of noise in the Edmonton market. It has more on-line engagement than any town in the league (think web searches, website hits, You-Tube, Reddit, etc.). Only Toronto is second.<\/p>\n

8. Quinn Hutson is having a fabulous rookie season for the Bakersfield Condors. He scored his 29th (in just 60 games) Friday. Hutson is now 29-28-57. That leads all AHL rookies. Ike Howard is no slouch, either, 21-22-43 in 41 GP.<\/p>\n

7. Colton Dach was activated from LTIR by the Oilers on Saturday. I think there is a zero chance that he does not play at least one of the two back-to-backs coming up. More on the final five games of the season in a minute\u2026<\/p>\n

6. Connor McDavid<\/a> was help point-less on Saturday but still leads the National Hockey league with 126. Nikita Kucherov has 125, Nathan MacKinnon 122. If Connor wins a sixth Art Ross, he would be tied for the second most ever with Gordie Howe and Mario Lemieux. You-know-who is first!<\/p>\n

5. The Oilers have an outside chance of tying a franchise record for the most 20-goal scorers in one season. They have done it three times previously, twice in the 80s and once again in 1991-92. Five guys on this roster have already hit the mark. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has 18, Vasily Podkolzin 17 and Matt Savoie 15 with 5 games remaining.<\/p>\n

4. One reason while I remain a believer in the Oilers come playoff time is the health and performance of Mattias Ekholm. Evan Bouchard deserves all the attention he is attracting in his terrific season, but Ekholm has been an ageless wonder. Soon to be 36, Ekholm is a Top 10 NHL D-man in terms of Plus-Minus (+29). In that respect, he and Brett Burns are in a league of their own.<\/p>\n

3. The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> have signed F Owen Michaels to a 1-year ELC, for the rest of this season. Michaels was the MVP of the Frozen Four with Western Michigan in 2025. Michaels is a 6\u20192, 185LB right shot Center. You can never have too many of those in your organization. In 2025-26 his line was 13-13-26 in 39 GP, +10. A true two-way performer, the soon-to-be 24-year-old will spend the rest of this year in Edmonton, with an eye to signing him to a new contract in the off-season. In the Stanley Cup Playoff window the Oilers are presently in, finding NHL-ready depth players to fill the gap left by traded draft capital is critical. It is no small coup that a team as good as Edmonton was able to win these sweepstakes. Michaels could easily have chosen a lesser club where immediate NHL TOI would have been guaranteed.<\/p>\n

2. There is a new tool in the hockey world that I would like to draw your attention to. I am and always be an \u201ceye test guy\u201d. So, anything that helps me better understand analytics is a boon. The tool is LineBlender, developed by Edmonton\u2019s own Kevin McCurdy. It is an on-line resource enabling one-stop shopping for those who want to visualize line analytics in real time. I used it for the first time Thursday night in the Oilers win over Chicago, specifically looking at the productive night the fourth line of Josh Samanski, Adam Henrique and Max jones enjoyed. You may know Kevin via his late father\u2019s good reputation. Bruce was an integral part of The Cult of Hockey. With this program, Kevin has taken a brave merge into his own lane of hockey\u2019s information super-highway. And I have no doubt our old friend would be tremendously proud of him. Best of luck to Kevin in his new venture.<\/p>\n

1.The Edmonton Oilers will leave the weekend in first place in the Pacific. With just 5 games left in the regular season that is most certainly the good news. The bad is that the Oilers loss to Las Vegas 5-1 on Saturday turned up some of the same old defensive errors that plagued them earlier on in the season. Edmonton\u2019s defensive play had been much better of late. But of the goals against Saturday were the direct result of Oilers errors: An uncharacteristic bad decision by Vasily Poskolzin, a poor read by Darnell Nurse and a puck-watching offence by Ty Emberson. And while the loss was certainly not \u201con him\u201d, it was not Connor Ingram\u2019s best work either. He was the second-best goaltender on the ice next to Carter Hart. Hmmm.<\/p>\n

The thing is, though: This game was still within reach at 3-1 in the third period and the Oilers on the power play. But the Edmonton man advantage has only cashed twice since Leon Draisaitl went on LTIR. And shortly after this latest failed power play opportunity, the Golden Knights made it 4-1. Game over.<\/p>\n

But take two fifty goal scorers away from any team and their power play will not be as effective. The team still gave up 5. With Draisaitl and Hyman in the press box, you can not give up more than three a night and still expect to win most evenings. It\u2019s too tough of a league.<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Oilers hit the road in Utah Tuesday, San Jose Wednesday and L.A. on Saturday, before coming home to Colorado and Vancouver to end the regular season. It seems unlikely to have either Leon or Hyman for the entire trip.<\/p>\n

So, they best rediscover their defensive awareness\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026and fast.<\/p>\n

This article is not AI generated.<\/p>\n

\"Leavins<\/a><\/p>\n

Leavins Cult of Hockey<\/p>\n

Recently, at The Cult\u2026<\/p>\n

LEAVINS: Edmonton Oilers lose 5-1 to the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a><\/p>\n

STAPLES: Oilers dominate Chicago in 3-1 victory<\/a><\/p>\n

LEAVINS: Edmonton 3 Seattle 0<\/a><\/p>\n

Bruce McCurdy, 1955-2025.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a>\u00a0and EdmontonSun.com<\/a>\u00a0to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Oilers need to make sure that what happened to them against Las Vegas on Saturday is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[22975,49,48,17788,6681,5731,100644,50808,12428,29972,93273,23752,453,36386,147702,194601,25908,22368,9885,23988,143762,48001,34148,223249,40702,5881,3302,109067,55,23989],"class_list":{"0":"post-583886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-adam-henrique","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-carter-hart","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-colorado","14":"tag-colton-dach","15":"tag-connor-ingram","16":"tag-connor-mcdavid","17":"tag-darnell-nurse","18":"tag-david-bloom","19":"tag-edmonton","20":"tag-edmonton-oilers","21":"tag-evan-bouchard","22":"tag-golden-knights","23":"tag-josh-samanski","24":"tag-leon-draisaitl","25":"tag-mario-lemieux","26":"tag-matt-savoie","27":"tag-mattias-ekholm","28":"tag-max-jones","29":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","30":"tag-nikita-kucherov","31":"tag-owen-michaels","32":"tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins","33":"tag-san-jose","34":"tag-toronto","35":"tag-ty-emberson","36":"tag-vancouver","37":"tag-vasily-podkolzin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}