Quoting: Rooney
Perhaps the fact that other teams ALSO improved in these areas and improved more in my opinion than the Oilers. If you read my previous comments you will see that I think this division will be extremely close from 2-6 and I bet they will only be separated by a few points. Edmonton could finish 2nd or 6th and I wouldn't be surprised.
That's simply not true. Who added scoring depth among forwards? Which teams added offense from the blueline? More importantly, did 4 teams added
enough of those things to get past Edmonton? You have Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Winnipeg ahead of Edmonton.
Scoring depth among forwards
Toronto - worse than last year, older and slower. Moved 2nd liners out and 4th liners in
Montreal - about the same as last year, the Domi trade was a big loss and they're weak down the middle
Calgary - no adds at all
Winnipeg - Stastny should help, but he'll be 35 by the time the puck drops
Edmonton - Turris, Kahun and Puljujarvi coming in, plus full seasons from Yamamoto and Ennis give this group a HUGE boost
Offense from the blueline
Toronto - changes are a wash, they got better defensively but downgraded offensively
Montreal - Edmundson might make them a little harder to play against, but adds no offense
Calgary - Hamonic and Tanev are a wash, losing Gustafsson reduces their blueline offense
Winnipeg - Nothing
Edmonton - Barrie is a strong add, Jones will get a full season
Here are each Canadian team's top-9 forwards by P/GP - none of them have the scoring depth Edmonton does and it's not close.
Edmonton: 7.69 total
Draisaitl: 1.55 P/GP
McDavid: 1.52
Yamamoto: 0.96
Nugent-Hopkins: 0.94
Kassian: 0.58
Neal: 0.56
Kahun: 0.55
Ennis: 0.53
Turris: 0.50
Toronto: 6.72 total
Matthews: 1.14 P/GP
Marner: 1.14
Tavares: 0.95
Nylander: 0.87
Hyman: 0.73
Mikheyev: 0.59
Thornton: 0.44
Kerfoot: 0.43
Spezza: 0.43
Winnipeg: 6.40 total
Connor: 1.03 P/GP
Scheifele: 1.03
Laine: 0.93
Wheeler: 0.92
Ehlers: 0.82
Stastny: 0.54
Roslovic: 0.41
Copp: 0.41
Perreault: 0.31
Vancouver: 6.05 total
Miller: 1.04 P/GP
Pettersson: 0.97
Boeser: 0.79
Horvat: 0.77
Pearson: 0.65
Gaudette: 0.56
Virtanen: 0.52
Sutter: 0.39
Ferland: 0.36
Calgary: 5.60 total
Tkachuk: 0.88 P/GP
Gaudreau: 0.83
Lindholm: 0.77
Monahan: 0.69
Backlund: 0.64
Leivo: 0.53
Mangiapane: 0.47
Ryan: 0.43
Dube: 0.36
Montreal: 5.33 total
Tatar: 0.90 P/GP
Gallagher: 0.73
Danault: 0.66
Tofolli: 0.65
Suzuki: 0.58
Drouin: 0.56
Armia: 0.52
Lehkonen: 0.39
Byron: 0.34
Ottawa: 4.42 total
Dadonov: 0.68
Tkachuk: 0.62
Brown: 0.61
Tierney: 0.52
Batherson: 0.43
Galchenyuk: 0.41
Anisimov: 0.41
White: 0.38
Paul: 0.36