The challenge for the Edmonton Oilers this season is becoming a perennial Stanley Cup contender with two of the best players in the NHL, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
"We don't want to go backwards," general manager Ken Holland said. "But it gets harder and harder to move up the standings]. You've got to be in the playoffs every year, and over a 10-year period, you'd like to be in seven or eight [times] if you have a good program. And you have to stick with it.
"I don't look at it like we have to win the Stanley Cup in '20-21. We have to play our way into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Then you've got to win that series, and it gets harder and harder as you go from 16, to eight, to four to two."
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Led by Draisaitl, who was voted winner of the Hart Trophy as most valuable player in the NHL and won the Art Ross Trophy as the League scoring champion (110 points; 43 goals, 67 assists), and McDavid (97 points; 34 goals, 63 assists), Edmonton finished second in the Pacific Division with a .585 points percentage (37-25-9), after a seventh-place finish (35-38-9) in 2018-19, but lost the best-of-5 Stanley Cup Qualifiers in four games to the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Oilers have won one Stanley Cup Playoff series (2017) since reaching the Final in 2006.
"I think there's still a lot of potential for our group to go forward and keep getting better," Draisaitl said. "We're obviously looking to take the next step this season."
The Oilers will likely have to do that without No. 1 defenseman Oscar Klefbom, who might be out for the season because of a chronic shoulder injury. Defenseman Tyson Barrie agreed to a one-year contract as an unrestricted free agent Oct. 10. His role will include running the power play, which was No. 1 in the NHL last season (29.5 percent).
To improve depth at forward, the Oilers agreed to a two-year contract with Kyle Turris on Oct. 9 and project him at third-line center with wing
Jesse Puljujarvi
, who signed a two-year contract Oct. 7 after playing two seasons for Karpat in Liiga, the top professional league in Finland. Puljujarvi was Edmonton's first-round pick (No. 4) in the 2016 NHL Draft and has not played in the NHL since 2018-19, when he left the Oilers after his entry-level contract expired July 1, 2019, and signed with Karpat as a restricted free agent. He led Karpat and was fourth in Liiga with 53 points (24 goals, 29 assists) in 56 games last season.
"Last year the bottom part of the roster did a great job with checking," Holland said. "There's people down there who did a big job with us being in the top two in the NHL in penalty killing (84.4 percent), but we're trying to get more offense spread through the lineup."
The Oilers will rely on the goalies they had last season, Mikko Koskinen and Mike Smith; the latter was an unrestricted free agent who agreed to a one-year contract to stay on Oct. 10. Edmonton is also hoping better balance will help at 5-on-5, where it was outscored 154-144.
"I think our 5-on-5 game can improve a little bit," Draisaitl said. "We had great special teams and we're looking to continue that. But you can't always count on that and you need your 5-on-5 game to be strong. That's something we can improve on.
"We can get better. We took a little step there but there's still room for improvement."
