Comparing the 2024–25 Edmonton Oilers to last year’s

The 2024–25 season has been a tumultuous year for the Edmonton Oilers. The injury bug has hit the team hard, and levels of play have varied from looking every bit the Western Conference Champions of a year ago to a team that doesn’t look close to a playoff level.

However, this year’s Oilers and last season’s team may be more similar than you realize. With the playoffs right around the corner, let’s take a look at the current team and compare them to last season’s counterparts.

How does this team stack up against last season’s squad? And in what ways does last year’s team surpass this season?

Biggest difference is the roster

The biggest difference between last year’s Oilers team and this season’s squad is the supporting cast. Last season, players like Ryan McLeod, Dylan Holloway, Phillip Broberg, and Warren Foegele buoyed the bigger names in the lineup.

This season, Jeff Skinner, Viktor Arvidsson, Jake Walman, and Vasily Podkolzin have taken their places, with varying results. The dueling offer sheets to Holloway and Broberg have paid off in spades for the St. Louis Blues, with Holloway specifically emerging as one of the best young players in the NHL. Skinner and Arvidsson’s struggles have only increased the scrutiny of letting a young, cost controlled player like Holloway walk in favor of older talent.

Broberg and McLeod’s departures have been handled with more success. Although McLeod has enjoyed a productive season in Buffalo, that trade brought the Oilers a very good young talent in Matthew Savoie, and although he hasn’t quite made his mark in the NHL, it figures to only be a matter of time before Savoie is playing meaningful minutes for this Oilers team. Broberg’s departure was perhaps always going to happen, as he requested a trade last season. The acquisition of Jake Walman at this year’s trade deadline properly replaced Broberg’s role in the lineup, and with Walman on a cheaper contract that Broberg, it could be argued that the Oilers did well to replace the young defenceman.

The Oilers lost their youth and speed

Ultimately the biggest difference between last year’s Oilers and this season’s team is age and speed. The Oilers are the league’s second oldest team with an average age of 30.6 per Left Wing Lock. The removal of youth like Holloway and Broberg (both 23) and McLeod (25) in favour of Skinner and Arvidsson (both 32) and Walman (29) does give the Oilers a more veteran team with more experience.

However, in order to sustain a competitive roster in the current NHL, you need to be adding youth into your lineup where possible to keep a good balance of age and quickness. Last season’s Oilers had a much better balance of this, as opposed to this year’s team.

A similar storyline for the season

One thing this season’s OIlers team and last year’s team do share is a similar seasonal story. Everyone remembers the nightmare start to last season. 3–9–1, Jay Woodcroft’s firing after a win in Seattle, Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey coming aboard to right the ship. Everyone also remembers the 16-game win streak in December and January, second longest in league history.

Last year’s Oilers team ran molten hot and freezing cold. This season’s team has likewise been a team of runs. A middling October start gave way to rock solid play in November and December. This success carried until the 4 Nations break, where the Oilers began a rough run of play before righting themselves going into March, where they ran into injury issues that continue to plague the team in the run-up to the postseason.

It seems unfair to call the Oilers “streaky”, but for the last few seasons every year seems to play the same. A middling or poor start, followed by a holiday season push, with that strong play continuing into the new year. Now this season hasn’t seen a 3–9–1 start nor a 16 game win streak, but this year’s Oilers have also gone through stretches of sustained success and questionable play.

Last season’s Oilers also backslid into the playoffs, however. Losses to Vancouver, Colorado, and being the final team to lose to the Arizona Coyotes in Phoenix didn’t exactly give Oilers fans confidence heading into the postseason. However, we all know how the Oilers were able to right the ship come playoff time, so maybe repeated a similar story this season isn’t the worst thing in the world.

A repeat of first-round opponent

Of course, another similarity to last season’s team is their probable first round opponent in the playoffs. It seems that for a fourth straight year, the Oilers will face off against the Los Angeles Kings in the first round.

Will this season finally be the one where the Kings vanquish their demons? Or will Edmonton show once again they have L.A.’s number? Oilers fans around the world are hoping that this season’s result will be the biggest similarity of all, with Edmonton coming out on top.

Defence has certainly improved

One thing this season’s Oilers team certainly exceeds last season’s roster in is the defence. Last year’s team still had the pairings of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard, but the third pair of Brett Kulak and Vincent Desharnais was up and down, and the less said about the Darnell Nurse-Cody Ceci pairing, the better.

This season the Oilers defence has been it’s most consistently solid unit, with new additions Ty Emberson, the aforementioned Jake Walman, and veteran Troy Stecher stepping up to form one of the more complete defensive cores in the NHL.

Nurse specifically has had his best season in years rotating between Stetcher, Walman, and Emberson throughout the season. With Mattias Ekholm nursing injury for parts of the season, Nurse has really stepped up his play to meet the needs of the team. Although his oft-maligned contract will likely always garner him negative sympathies, Nurse is an important player in this team and the Oilers are better when he is playing well. If the Oilers go far in the playoffs, expect Nurse and the rest of the defensive core to be a key reason why.

Which team is better?

Although it may seem easy to say the team that went to Game 7 of the Final was better, I do believe last season’s Oilers team to be a superior unit to this season’s. The younger and speedier supporting cast was more successful than the more veteran players this season, and would have helped the Oilers more in the playoffs. Last year’s team also received more consistent goaltending from Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard. However, that’s not to say that last season’s team totally blows this year’s out of the water.

This season’s defensive core is highly superior to last season’s, with more balanced pairings and certain players performing at higher levels. Additionally, this year’s team is a more experienced and veteran unit, and although the regular season has been up-and-down, that kind of age and experience can really come through come playoff time. When the stakes get high and the margins get thin, you want to have players who have been there before, and the Oilers have playoff experience in spades. The game also slows down in the postseason, which may play into the strength of an older, more experienced Edmonton team.

Ultimately the playoffs will be the ultimate decider to what team is superior. If this year’s Oilers squad is able to enter the playoffs healthy with an improved defensive core and enhanced playoff experience, they may be able to win the extra game that last year’s squad wasn’t able to, and lift the franchise’s 6th Stanley Cup. Only time will tell.