The Oilers Spent the Offseason Fixing the Wrong Thing

46% of league median. That is where Zach Hyman's left-wing production landed last season — 0.33 points per game against a positional benchmark of 0.72 — and when you combine that number with the fact that there is no viable depth behind him at the position at all, you have identified the single most damaging structural hole on this roster. Not the blue line. Not goaltending. The left wing. The Oilers spent the summer addressing everything except that.

I wrote last week about the 13–22 record in one-goal games being the number that actually broke Edmonton's season, and I want to stay on that thread here because the offseason spending pattern makes it more alarming, not less. The Oilers signed Connor Murphy to a five-year, $20.5 million deal and re-signed Jason Dickinson at five years and $20 million. They traded Darnell Nurse, signed Frederik Andersen, extended Colton Dach. Every significant roster move this summer has pointed at the defensive structure and the goaltending depth. None of it points at the left wing. The organization looked at a 41–41 season and concluded the problem was the back end.

The numbers do not support that diagnosis as the primary one. Yes, Nurse finished at -9 in 48 games and the production cliff behind Evan Bouchard was real — Bouchard's 46 points in 48 games had no meaningful second act on the blue line. But the Oilers allowed 4.0 goals per game over the first 28 games of the season and still finished at .500, because Connor McDavid was posting 82 points in 48 games and Leon Draisaitl was producing at an elite rate when available. The offense was generating enough to survive a leaky defense. What it could not survive was a 37% win rate in one-goal contests. That is a process problem — late-game structure, depth execution in tight situations, the ability to hold leads — not a raw talent-scarcity problem that another defenseman solves.

Which brings the left wing back into focus, because depth execution in close games is precisely where thin wings hurt you most. When McDavid and Draisaitl are on the ice, the Oilers are a different team. When they are not — when a one-goal game in the third period requires secondary contributors to protect or extend a lead — the roster has almost nothing at left wing to lean on. Hyman played only 25 games. Behind him, the depth chart shows no rank-two left wing with meaningful observed playing time. That is not a minor gap. In one-goal games, that is the gap where seasons go to die.

Mike Babcock's hire is the one offseason move that could theoretically address the close-game collapse without directly fixing the roster, because a coaching change can alter late-game deployment and defensive structure in ways that roster additions cannot. Babcock has a long track record of building teams that are disciplined in tight games — his best clubs were never the flashiest, but they were hard to beat in the third period. If he can install that kind of structure around McDavid and Draisaitl, the 13–22 record in one-goal games becomes the most correctable number on the ledger. But a system only works if the players executing it in the final five minutes are capable, and right now the left-wing depth chart is asking that question with no answer behind it.

My read is that the Oilers have done legitimate work this offseason — the Nurse trade cleared a real problem, Andersen is a credible upgrade in net, and the Babcock hire is a genuine organizational statement. But the left-wing position remains flagged as a moderate-to-high concern, and the team is heading into a season opener against Vancouver on September 29 with that hole unaddressed. A 41–41 team that lost the close-game lottery by nine games needed to fix the margins. Instead, it reinforced the perimeter. The box score from last season is still waiting for an answer.