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Sunday Scramble: A year from hell for the Oilers? World Junior excitement, and a case for a new playoff format

5 17
23.12.2025
There is part of me that wonders whether this is a “year from hell” season for the Edmonton Oilers.

I’ve lifted the term from longtime columnist and now podcaster extraordinaire Bill Simmons, who you may know from The Ringer.

The term “year from hell team” comes up often in NFL discussions and characterizes a team with championship aspirations, but injuries or off-the-field issues plague them.

The Oilers’ injury luck this year has been downright rotten.

This was a big season for Jake Walman to solidify himself as an every-night top-four defenceman. It’s a huge opportunity for Jack Roslovic, who was seizing it and at times was the Oilers’ best forward, until his painful injury to the jingle bells. Kasperi Kapanen was close to returning, then re-aggravated his injury at practice. The pleasant sparkplug of Connor Clattenburg has had swelling so bad near his eye that he can’t exercise too hard or he’d be at further risk, and landed on the LTIR Sunday.

On the bright side, McDrai have remained upright, and as long as they do, Edmonton has a puncher’s chance in every hockey game they play.

But then there’s the goaltending…

A Jarr(y)ing situation

General manager Stan Bowman rolled the dice to acquire Tristan Jarry, and within two-and-a-half games, Jarry is on the shelf. Injury timeline TBD.

Luckily, after tonight, there’s just one more game to go until a brief reprieve for Santa. If there’s any bit of solace, it’s that Jarry wasn’t instantly placed on LTIR, but it’s still a nightmare scenario for the Oilers.

As we know, the dialogue around a goalie trade weeks ago hinged around improving the overall goaltending, aka a 1-2 punch with Stu Skinner as the backup to a new starter. That didn’t happen and now it’s Calvin Pickard and the abrupt, but required, call-up of Connor Ingram.

I’m not going to crucify this backfiring on Bowman so quickly because we don’t know a prognosis on Jarry, and a lateral slide across the crease leading to a lower-body injury is out of Bowman’s control.

However, I did find the full chorus of analysts explaining how Jarry’s injury history was not a concern – in fact, overblown or downright not true – quite ironic considering how quickly he got banged up.

Hopefully he returns soon and this is no big deal…unless it lingers…and Jarry becomes day-to-day consistently…and then what?

Every arrow points towards the Buffalo Sabres and

© Oilers Nation