What’s interesting is seeing how offensively oriented teams compare to defensively oriented teams: slightly more first-round losses and fewer trips to the Stanley Cup Final (though more wins once they get there). It’s a near opposite effect for teams below average in both respects, as expected. Of the 46 teams that have been, 74 percent have made it past the first round, 48 percent to the conference final and 26 percent to the Cup Final. The goal is to be a balanced team that’s above average in both respects those are the contenders. When adding in Cup finalists to the equation, 20 of 26 had an above-average Defensive Rating relative to the playoff field compared to 17 of 26 with an above-average offense. The average Defensive Rating for a Cup winner before 2018 was plus-3.8. In the four seasons since, scoring has risen and with it has come an increased need to be able to defend. There are Cup winners that were projected to be offensively dominant, defensively dominant and just plain dominant - but the last time a team won with below-playoff-average defense was Washington in 2018. Were they above average on offense and defense, above average in just one respect or below average in both? Here’s where each team ended up, color-coded to their playoff result. Using Offensive and Defensive Rating (essentially goals scored and allowed above league average), I looked at the past 13 playoff seasons and where teams were projected to fit relative to their playoff field going into the playoffs.
The bad news is that there is some truth to defense playing a bigger role in the postseason, where it’s easier to expose a weak defense compared to a weak offense. Different styles, different priorities, different strengths, different skill sets, different sizes - same result. The Pittsburgh Penguins did it with an offensive juggernaut. The Los Angeles Kings did it with a defensive juggernaut. The Colorado Avalanche did it with a balanced team that was elite at both ends of the ice. There is no one true way to win the Stanley Cup. The team has made very real progress defensively over the years, but as a whole, it’s still enough to make people nervous. And the goaltending is unproven at best ( Stuart Skinner) and downright terrifying at worst ( Jack Campbell). The defense corps, even with Mattias Ekholm in the fold, isn’t the strongest. The forward group, even with improved play and the addition of Nick Bjugstad, doesn’t have the best defensive reputation. If defense wins championships, an Oilers team built on high-octane offense doesn’t quite fit the mold. Believe it or not, the Oilers are a bona fide Stanley Cup contender.Īnd yet there are still doubters out there and it’s not hard to see why. Today those odds have risen to 13 percent, behind only Boston, Colorado and Toronto. At the start of this run their chances sat at just three percent. This is a team that’s firing on all cylinders, led of course by one of the all-time greats putting up a historic season.īecause of this second-half run, the Oilers’ chances of winning the Stanley Cup have steadily increased each day. To go with the league’s best power play, the Oilers also have the second-best expected goals percentage at five-on-five and are third in chance suppression on the penalty kill. But over this last stretch, they’ve started to really dominate in all situations. There’s a perception around the Oilers that their lone strength is on the power play, nothing more. That’s nearly three percentage points better than Carolina in second. That’s no fluke either - the Oilers have a 60.2 percent expected goals percentage in all situations over the second half.
That’s the best points percentage in hockey during the time span, a span where Edmonton has outscored opponents 173-112, a plus-61 goal differential that also leads the league. It didn’t start that way with an uneven first half that saw Edmonton go 21-18-3, but the Oilers have been almost unstoppable ever since going 28-5-6.
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