Oilers could regret not upgrading their defence ahead of playoffs
The Edmonton Oilers have a 1-1-1 record after acquiring Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick from the Anaheim Ducks last Wednesday.
Other than adding Troy Stecher, who probably won’t see much action, that was GM Ken Holland’s biggest move of this year’s trade deadline. It brought in a veteran centreman in Henrique, who solidified the third-line and gave the team some flexibility to move other players around and a fourth-line grinder with Carrick, who was scratched on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
In a vacuum, this was a good move. The team got deeper, and their depth is much more defined than it was a few weeks ago. Not to mention that Henrique has had no problems scoring goals this season, with 18, which the Oilers desperately needed from their bottom-six group.
But when you look around at what other contending Western Conference teams did at the deadline, the lustre starts to fade from Edmonton’s transactions.
Trade additions by current West teams this season:
EDM: Henrique, Carrick, Stecher
DAL: Tanev
WPG: Monahan, Toffoli
COL: Mittlestadt, Walker, Trenin, Duhaime
NSH: Beauvillier, Zucker
VAN: Lindholm, Zadorov
VGK: Hanifin, Mantha, Hertl
LA: ~#Oilers— Preston Hodgkinson (@NHLHodgkinson) March 8, 2024
The Oilers went into the deadline with two pressing needs: a top-six RW to play with Leon Draisaitl on the second line and a top-four RD to upgrade on Cody Ceci. They came out of the deadline with neither.
Every other west playoff team, save for LA and Nashville, was able to find a way to add solid players at the top of the roster — players that will impact the game at a much higher level than a Henrique, Carrick, or Stecher will. The Vegas Golden Knights, who knocked the team out of last year’s playoffs, were the most aggressive, adding two top-six calibre forwards in Tomas Hertl and Anthony Mantha and a top-four defenceman with Noah Hanifin.
The kicker? They made all those acquisitions without having to give up their 2024 first-round pick, which the Oilers did with the Ducks. The team that eliminated the Oilers last season is arguably even more stacked, while the Oilers are, more or less, a similar team outside of a few bottom-six additions.
This isn’t to say that Edmonton is a bad team — not at all. It’s more of a matter of whether they did enough to keep up.
Not adding a top-six winger hurts, but it probably won’t be the team’s Achilles’ heel. Henrique has allowed the team to match up Draisaitl with Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele, two players who have speed and better offensive instincts. The trio has chemistry, and early returns have been positive.
The real concern is running back Ceci in the top four, who has been run over during the last two playoff runs with the Oilers. According to Natural Stat Trick, in his last 28 playoff games, Ceci has been outscored 27-24 at even-strength and is dead-last on the team with an expected goals-for percentage (xGF%) of 46.24. The next closest is Darnell Nurse, who has a 51.67 xGF%.
Those are not numbers you’d like to see on the second pair of a contending team, and the fact that the Oilers have decided to stand pat on the position could come back to bite them. The Golden Knights absolutely feasted on Ceci in the playoffs last season, outscoring the Oilers 8-1 at even strength while he was on the ice. Vegas scored a total of 22 goals in that six-game series, meaning Ceci was on the ice for about 36% of the goals against.
The team probably knows this to a certain extent and is presumably looking to work around it with their latest lineup changes. Ceci has recently been playing on the team’s third pair alongside Brett Kulak, while Vincent Desharnais is up with Nurse. That is also a risky move, however, given Desharnais’ lack of experience playing up in the lineup and the fact that he didn’t have great playoff results last season.
Word on the street is that the Oilers also took a healthy run at Chris Tanev before he got traded to the Dallas Stars, so the team understands what upgrades needed to happen. Yet, not much can be done to address that need now that the deadline has passed.
It will be interesting to see how the team plays out the stretch. They are in a fight for first in the Pacific Division with the Vancouver Canucks and would play the LA Kings in the first round if the playoffs started tonight.
The Oilers’ last regular season game is set for April 18.
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