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Can The Oilers Improve To 2008-09 Levels?

2008-09, we long for thee?

By Derek Zona
Derek Leung

In his look at goal differential, Ryan concluded:

I'd say the team will probably be about 30 goals better in their end of the rink. Strong seasons from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov will improve things in the other end of the rink too. The problem is, they're so far behind they have a ton of improving to do just to be bad.

30 goals equals about 5 wins, giving the Oilers 10 more points than 2013-14, or 77 points.  Based on last season's year-end standings, that moves the Oilers into 13th place.  That would also be the team's third-largest points gain since the 2006 run.

If the Oilers were to match their largest points gain since rebuild v3.6 began...

Year GP W L OL PTS PTS% PTS/G ▲
2005-06 82 41 28 13 95 0.579 1.159
2006-07 82 32 43 7 71 0.433 0.866 -0.293
2007-08 82 41 35 6 88 0.537 1.073 0.207
2008-09 82 38 35 9 85 0.518 1.037 -0.037
2009-10 82 27 47 8 62 0.378 0.756 -0.280
2010-11 82 25 45 12 62 0.378 0.756 0.000
2011-12 82 32 40 10 74 0.451 0.902 0.146
2012-13 48 19 22 7 45 0.469 0.938 0.035
2013-14 82 29 44 9 67 0.409 0.817 -0.120
2014-15* 82 34* 37* 11* 79* 0.482 0.963* 0.146*

*projected based on matching the team's best points-gained improvement since 2008-09

...the team would still find itself with just 79 points, and based on last year's standings, still in 13th place.  If they are able to steal a couple of wins from the 12th place team, perhaps they could move into 12th and the team wouldn't be as good as the 2008-09 edition.

That they can match their best improvement of the rebuild era and only move up to (hopefully) 12th shows the depth to which this franchise has fallen.