Oilers the West's best shot at Stanley Cup according to analytics site
The Edmonton Oilers are the West’s best.
When it comes to the chance of hoisting hockey’s Holy Grail, that is.
The Oilers are the Western Conference favourite and have the second-best chance league-wide at winning Lord Stanley’s Cup, according to popular analytics site MoneyPuck.
Edmonton has a 13.0% shot at the Stanley Cup, trailing only the Carolina Hurricanes — who vanquished the Oilers in the 2006 Final — hold a better chance at 15.2%. That makes Edmonton the West’s best, and Canada’s top choice to bring the Cup north for the first time since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
The Oilers, who have points in nine of the past 10 games, have a 96.5% chance at qualifying for the playoffs, one of seven teams to be north of 94%. They’ve got a 61.3% shot at advancing to the second round, and 23.5% odds of making the Stanley Cup Final.
MoneyPuck
“By running a simulation of the rest of the NHL season 100,000 times we can create precise probabilities of the outcome of the season for each team,” MoneyPuck details on its site. “Each game is simulated using the probabilities from the pre-game prediction model discussed below. For games further into the future, the model scores are regressed to the mean to account for uncertainty.”
By comparison, Edmonton has a 94% shot at qualifying for the playoffs according to The Athletic, and a 6% shot at the Cup — tied for fifth-best.
The Oilers sit with a share of second in the Pacific Division, alongside the Los Angeles Kings, with a 32-19-8 record for 72 points and a .610 points percentage in 59 games. Edmonton sits three back of the Vegas Golden Knights for the division lead, with Vegas holding one game at hand.
They’re two up on the Seattle Kraken for fourth, with Seattle holding a game at hand, and six clear of the provincial rival Calgary Flames, who have 66 points through 59 games.
The Oilers advanced to the Western Conference Final a spring ago before being dispatched in four straight by the eventual Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche, and boast the NHL’s top two leading scorers in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisiatl.
McDavid has a firm grasp on the Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard Trophy with 46 goals and another Art Ross Trophy bid with 109 points. Draisaitl trails both with 87 points (35 goals, 52 assists). Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, in the midst of a career year, is tied for ninth in league scoring with 72 points (28 goals, 44 assists), too.
It’ll be all for nought, though, if Edmonton doesn’t live up to the lofty playoff expectations hoisted upon the Oilers from both internal and external sources.
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