Coaching change, improved goaltending have saved Oilers’ season

Around the halfway point of the 2021-22 season it looked as if the Edmonton Oilers were on the verge of flushing another prime year of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl down the toilet. After being swept out of the First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs a year ago, the Oilers were on the playoff bubble, had all of the same flaws that existed for much of the previous five years, and did not seem to have much urgency in fixing any of them.

The team looked stale under former coach Dave Tippett, they were not getting the goaltending they needed, and everything about the team was dependent on McDavid and Draisaitl being to drag it as far as they could.

Then in early February things started to shift.

That was when Jay Woodcroft took over for Tippett and the Oilers immediately started to play the way a team with two megastars should play.

Under Woodcroft the Oilers are 21-8-3 entering Wednesday’s game against the Dallas Stars and are not only a lock to make the playoffs, they are probably going to get home-ice advantage in the First Round against (presumably) the Los Angeles Kings. It is a pretty dramatic turnaround in a short period of time, with only one major in-season change happening to the roster (the signing of Evander Kane).

So what’s changed so much of the Oilers’ outlook?

Let’s start with the simplest one, and the first thing you can almost always look at when a team sees a sudden change in its results: Goaltending.

The Oilers entered the season with the same goalie duo from a year ago in Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen. It was risky, curious, and not exactly ideal given how much goalie talent was available this offseason. And for the first part of the season, it was every bit the problem it was expected to be.

But