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Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Oilers (Simon Fearn-Imagn Images)

Edmonton Oilers Quarter-Season Awards

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers | By Brian Swane | Last updated Nov 17, 2025 10:05 AM ET

The Edmonton Oilers are now 20 games into their 2025-26 schedule, and it’s not been a particularly impressive start to the season for the back-to-back Western Conference champions.

With a record of 9-7-4 for 22 points, Edmonton is currently sitting outside of a playoff position. The Oilers have only four regulation wins, tied for fewest in the NHL, and a goal-differential of negative-8, which ranks 27^th in the league.

There’s been no shortage of lowlights (a record-tying 9-1 loss at home to the Colorado Avalanche, to name one), but some Oilers have still stood out positively, especially as the team has picked up its play of late, winning three of the last four games. With that in mind, we present the quarter-season awards:

Most Valuable Player: Leon Draisaitl

As usual with the Oilers, the MVP is a toss-up between superstar besties Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid.

After scoring just three times in the first 14 games, McDavid has erupted for six goals in the last six games. He’s already got 16 points this month, bringing his season total to 30, which is second in the NHL behind only Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche. McDavid also now leads the league with 21 assists.

But while McDavid’s been red-hot lately, we’ll give the edge to Draisaitl, who has produced consistently throughout the first six weeks of the season. Only once has the German centre gone consecutive games without a goal, and he’s picked up at least one point in all but five of Edmonton’s games.

Draisaitl has scored 13 times to sit just one goal back of MacKinnon for the league lead. Draisaitl also has 10 assists for a total of 23 points, tied for 14^th in the Art Ross Trophy race. He holds a share of third place in the NHL with six power-play goals and leads the Oilers with a plus/minus rating of plus-8. Draisaitl has also been great in the faceoff circle, taking nearly 12 draws per game and winning 56.7% of them.

Top Newcomer: Jack Roslovic

Jack Roslovic wasn’t even on Edmonton’s season-opening roster: the 28-year-old centre, who had been a free agent, signed with the Oilers literally during their first game of 2025-26, against the Calgary Flames on Oct. 8. He made his Oilers debut six days later.

Having missed all of training camp and the preseason, it took Roslovic a couple weeks to find his stride (he managed just one point, a secondary assist, over his first seven games), but he’s since racked up six goals and seven assists over the past 11 games.

Roslovic’s production has been crucial for an Oilers team that hasn’t been getting a lot of goals from many sources. He became the second player in franchise history to score in overtime in consecutive games, last week against the Columbus Blue Jackets and Philadelphia Flyers, lifting Edmonton to a pair of much-needed wins.

Roslovic is second on the Oilers with a plus/minus rating of plus-6, and his average of 2.44 shots per game is fourth highest on the team.

Best Defenceman: Jake Walman

Defence has arguably been the weakest spot for the Oilers over their lacklustre start to the season. From Mattias Ekholm to Darnell Nurse to (especially) Evan Bouchard, Edmonton’s supposed top blueliners are also the ones guilty of the most egregious misplays.

Jake Walman, Edmonton Oilers (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

Thus, choosing the best Oilers defenceman so far this season is like trying to pick the least bruised apple from all the ones that fell off the tree. But amongst it all, Jake Walman’s played relatively well and has already been Edmonton’s difference-maker on a couple of occasions.

After missing the first six games of 2025-26 with an undisclosed injury sustained during the preseason, Walman made an immediate impact in his season debut when he scored the overtime goal against the Ottawa Senators on Oct. 21. He played the role of hero again, on Nov. 10 against Columbus, scoring twice – including the latest game-tying shorthanded goal in franchise history – and assisting on Roslovic’s overtime winner.

For the season, Walman has totalled three goals and seven assists in 14 games. He leads all Oilers blueliners with a plus/minus rating of plus-2 and is tied for third on the team with 27 blocked shots.

Unsung Hero: Curtis Lazar

On a team with so many players who have underperformed so far, almost anyone that’s made a positive impact has stood out. Thus, you have to go pretty far down the lineup before you come across someone who’s “unsung”. So we looked to the fourth line and landed on Curtis Lazar.

Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch seems to have found a steadying presence in the veteran centre: after being a healthy scratch for 12 of Edmonton’s first 16 games, Lazar has now suited up for four straight games, helping the Oilers go 3-1-0 in that span.

Lazar averages less than 10 minutes of ice time per game but provides exactly what’s needed for the handful of moments that he’s on the ice. The 30-year-old is a good checker, kills penalties, solid on faceoffs (53.6%), and is one of the few Oilers that throws the body (first on the Oilers in hits per 60 minutes, with 14.01). He possesses the perfect demeanour for the role of 12^th-13^th forward: Lazar can sit in the pressbox for a week and return to the lineup without missing a beat.

That’s 20 games down, 62 to go for the Oilers, beginning Monday (Nov. 17) when they visit the Buffalo Sabres.