Oilers summary at 25 games

Edmonton Oilers report at 25 games played (December 3rd 2010)

The Oilers are currently 4th in the Western Conference with a solid 17-8-0 record, 4 points behind Northwest Division and Conference leaders Vancouver. Edmonton has unlike last season made drastic improvements defensively, allowing the 4th least goals in the leauge, with just 69. Dallas top that category with a mere 61 goals allowed. A part of the reason is Edmonton's excellent discipline, they are by far the least penalized team, having accumulated just 245 PIM, a good 6o PIM less than the next team, Philadelphia. Tampa Bay is the most belligerent team with 606 PIM. Edmonton's discipline goes a long way to explain the low goal total, despite their sub-par penalty killing percentage, which is 25th in the NHL with 80,2%.

On the offensive side of the game, Edmonton is 18th with 79 goals for, and they are similarly below average on their power play, converting 14,6% of their man advantages so far, for a total of 26PPGs (21st in the NHL). Edmonton does apply pressure, to some degree, on their oppoents though, having 11th most shots on goal in the league with 797, which in turn has their shooting percentage at 21st, at a 9,91% conversion rate.

Edmonton's top scorers are currently Patrick O'Sullivan, Greg Moore and Brooks Laich/Dustin Penner at 11, 10 and 8 goals respectively. Sam Gagner and Ales Hemsky, both on the top line, have accumulated most assists, both at 16, with Cogliano at 14 so far. Gagner also shares another team lead, in the plus minus category, sharing the throne with defenseman Anton Babchuk at +7. Ladislav Smid has +6, while Coglinao has +4. At the bottom of that category is Matt Lashoff at -6 and Yonkman/Grebeshkov at -4.

Tough defenseman Yonkman is clearly also the most penalized, with 65 PIM, a majority of which has been served for fighting. Next in that line is Ryan Stone at 29, Babchuk at 26 and Gilbert at an insignificant 16 PIM.

Anton Babchuk is also the biggest minute logger, averaging 24 minutes per game, his defensive partner Visnovsky stands at 22:27 per game. Brooks Laich leads forwards with 21:49 of ice time per game, while Axelsson, Falardeau and Stone average the least ice time, between 8:56 and 9:28 per game.