It is all going to fall on Connor McDavid for the Oilers (again)

There is a lot to be said for the team success the Edmonton Oilers have had over the previous four seasons. There has been a lot of it. They have won at least one playoff series in each of those seasons, advanced to the Western Conference Finals three times, each of the past two Stanley Cup Finals and were a Game 7 away from winning one of them. The only team that has won more playoff games than their 43 over that stretch has been the Florida Panthers.

Objectively speaking, it has been a wildly successful team, and there are probably 29 or 30 fan bases in the NHL that would have happily traded places with them over that stretch. That does not even get into the bonus of having the opportunity to watch world-class talents like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl every night.

The biggest driving force behind most of that success has been the presence of their core players, specifically McDavid and Draisaitl, and to a lesser extent, defensemen Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm.

They stir the drink. Drive the bus. Whatever cliche you want to use, they are the players that have put the Oilers on the map and helped them reached the levels they have reached.

But for all of the success they have had, they are still lacking a championship. And until they get that championship, the lack of one is going to be main narrative surrounding them.

Great players, more than anything, and whether it is fair or not, are measured by championships. In a sport like hockey, where the best players typically only play a third of the game, that can be extremely unfair given how much time there is for the rest of the team to screw things up. That has been the story for the McDavid-Draisaitl era Oilers from pretty much the day they arrived. No matter how good they have been, there are still 35-40 minutes per game for the rest of the team to screw things up. They usually do.

There had been some real improvement in that area in recent years, and that played a big role in the Oilers’ most recent success, especially in the postseason. But the 2025-26 season has seen them take a massive step backwards as a team in that regard.

I watched the Oilers play the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night and it looked like so many other Oilers games from the past decade. When McDavid was on the ice, he was a constant threat to score and always flying all over the ice. He was the one player that put fear into you. It also seemed like he was on the ice every other shift. At some points in the first and second periods it seemed like he was being triple-shifted because the Oilers were already down by three goals on the scoreboard. Even though he had a quiet night on the stat sheet, he was still the one guy that looked like a game-changer. When he was off the ice, the Oilers generated almost nothing. There was never anybody that pushed play or dictated the pace.

Again, this is nothing new for the Oilers. It should still be getting better. It is not. It might also leave you wondering if McDavid may have missed his best chance to win with the Oilers. And if the Oilers may have missed their best chance to win with McDavid.

That might sound extreme, but keep something in mind. This is McDavid’s age 29 season and he is still searching for his first championship at an age where other great players from his era had already finished winning.

Sidney Crosby won his third Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh at age 29.

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were done winning Stanley Cups in Chicago before they turned 29.

The same was true for Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty in Edmonton.

That is not to say it still can not happen for McDavid in Edmonton. Alex Ovechkin won his Stanley Cup in Washington at age 32. Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman were also in their 30s when Tampa Bay broke through and won with that core. But those players and teams also had significantly better core/depth groups around their superstars, not to mention franchise goalies that could take over games.

The Oilers have neither of those elements. They are also trending in the wrong direction when it comes to acquiring them.

Let’s dig into some numbers.

Let’s talk about it.