NHL teams
Matthew Coller, Special to ESPN 10y

Summer Skate: Edmonton Oilers

NHL

Summer Skate series index

Although the weather doesn't necessarily make us think of winter pursuits, it's a good time to take the temperature of every NHL team. Hockey Prospectus will guide us through the league-wide tour and spotlight one player trending up and one player trending down for each club, as well as a key statistic as we look ahead to the 2014-15 season. References will be made to goals versus threshold (GVT), a Hockey Prospectus proprietary statistic; for more on GVT, click here. All other advanced stats are courtesy of Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com.

Heading into 2013-14, the Edmonton Oilers felt it was time for their long rebuild to finally pay dividends. Instead, it was more of the same. Edmonton received terrible goaltending and a poor performance from its blue line. The shortcomings in its own zone were compounded by a lack of depth, as well as a group of one-dimensional forwards failing to hold their own.

This season, Oilers ownership will have similarly high expectations. They made some smart signings in the offseason, improving their scoring with former Ranger Benoit Pouliot and the blue line with veteran Mark Fayne. Also, No. 3 overall pick Leon Draisaitl may have a chance to see NHL time.

While Edmonton's name gets thrown in the mix for the race for the No. 1 overall draft pick (and the right to secure Connor McDavid), they may be closer to the eighth seed than they are 30th overall.


Trending up: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, F

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