The Oilers’ defensive play is the biggest concern amidst early season struggles

The Edmonton Oilers are going through something that has become all too familiar for their current core group— a slow start.

The Oilers are currently on the outside looking in of the Western Conference playoff picture with a 7-6-4 record and a -9 goal differential. Only three teams in the West have allowed more than their 61 goals against, and all three are below them in the standings.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by former NHL video coach Steve Peters to discuss Edmonton’s shortcomings on the defensive side of the puck and what can be done to address them.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Today, Petey, the task we gave you was breaking down what the hell is wrong with the Edmonton Oilers. Let’s go to the D-side first. At 5-on-5, my read on them as someone who watches every game is they kind of struggle at not making the blowup plays defensively… They’re actually good at preventing shots, but they’re bad at preventing true scoring chances. What did you find when you looked into the D side of things?

Steve Peters: Their ability to defend that high-danger area, right now they’re 17th in high-danger chances against… and that’s below average. So this is a team that’s going to have to learn to defend better, but the problem with Edmonton is that Edmonton wants to score. Edmonton wants to be faster than you. Edmonton wants to get into transition. They are thinking offense first. Now with the roster that they have… sometimes you’re looking for offense when really you need to defend first, and I think that’s been the biggest problem for this team so far early in this season.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…