I think we underrate the Oilers defense a fair bit here.
I made a post earlier in this thread that had the Knights having the advantage on the d-core, but was still critiqued for not giving enough of an advantage to Vegas.
However the Oilers as a team have played pretty stout team defense for most of the past two seasons.
Guys like Bouchard, Nurse, etc are prone to pretty big brain farts, but they tend to play solid defense 90% of the time. It's like TJ Brodie...they are good most of the time but they make 1-2 plays a game that are just glaring.
Over the last two seasons they are:
55.8% xGF at 5v5 (2nd)
2.39 xGA /60 at 5v5 (7th)
3.02 xGF / 60 at 5v5 (1st)
2.68 GF/60 at 5v5 (6th)
2.41 GA/60 at 5v5 (14th)
The weakness has been goaltending, but as long as Pickard can give them average goaltending they are going to be a tough out for any team.
Issue is Kings blew it when they had them on the ropes due to bad goaltending in games 1-4, and Oilers have adjusted.
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