It is September. The NHL regular season begins in 29 days, and the Edmonton Oilers need a strong start this season. They were sluggish to start the past three seasons, going 2-7-1, 4-5-1 and 4-5-1 in their first 10 games of the 2024, 2025, and 2026 seasons, but that shouldn’t happen this season.

They are fresh and rested.

Their core players had no off-season surgeries to recover from.

They are annoyed after losing meekly to Anaheim in round one last April.

They have a new head coach and a new associate coach and will want to impress them.

They have a favourable schedule to start the season.

Add those five things together, and I expect the Oilers to have a very good start. Here’s the Oilers’ early schedule:

Sept. 29 v. Vancouver
Oct. 1 @ Vancouver
Oct. 3 v. Seattle
Oct. 7 @ Anaheim
Oct. 10 @ San Jose
Oct. 13 @ Los Angeles
Oct. 15 v. Utah
Oct. 17 @ Utah
Oct. 20 v. Minnesota
Oct. 22 v. Carolina

They have no back-to-back games. They have two days between games three times, and three days between games once. Eight of their first 10 games involve teams below them in the standings last season, with only Minnesota and Carolina having more. Their first five games are against teams who ranked 32nd, 23rd, 29th and 30th in goals against/game last season. It would be........

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