Draisaitl Said Everything Everyone's Been Thinking

The Edmonton Oilers came home from a gruelling road trip, got a few days to rest and practice, and then lost 8-3 to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night at Rogers Place.

Eight goals against. At home. It was the kind of result that demands reflection, and Leon Draisaitl provided exactly that in his post-game comments. No anger, no deflection—just honest assessment of where this team is at nearly 30 games into the season.

“It’s very concerning,” Draisaitl said. “Everything is very concerning. We’re nearly 30 games in and still don’t seem to have it down or know what we are. So, yeah, I don’t really know what to say. It was just not good.”

That’s the quote that stands out. Not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s true. Nearly 30 games in, and the Oilers are still clueless. That’s not a crisis, it’s just reality. And sometimes, facing reality is harder than dealing with a crisis.

Draisaitl has been around long enough to know what a cohesive team feels like. He’s been to the Final. He’s won major awards. He knows when things are working and when they’re not. And right now, they’re not.

“We’re playing on our heels a lot of nights, very clearly,” he continued. “Not on the same page as a group. And then all of a sudden, a lot of things get exposed that when you’re on the same page, they don’t get exposed, right? So we’re just not intact right now. We’re not in sync as a group. And we have to figure that part out.”

Playing on their heels. Not in sync. Not intact. Just simple observations. And they explain a lot about what we’ve watched this season.

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The Oilers are 10-10-5, sitting in a wild-card spot with a quarter of the season gone. They’ve had moments that looked promising—the comeback wins, two points in Florida to end the road trip, the games where Zach Hyman returned, and everything seemed to gel. But they’ve also had nights like Tuesday, where nothing worked, and the structure disappeared completely.

What makes this loss particularly frustrating is the timing. The road trip that just ended wasn’t pretty, but it felt like progress. A .500 record through seven games in 11 days, with signs of defensive improvement and renewed physicality. They beat Florida 6-3 to close it out. The momentum was there for the taking.

And then Dallas came to town and scored eight. Wyatt Johnston had four points. Jason Robertson had three. The Stars did whatever they wanted, and the Oilers let them.

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It’s tempting to look for someone to blame. The goaltending was shaky. The defence wasn't reliable. The structure wasn’t there. But Draisaitl’s comments suggest something deeper—this isn’t about one bad night or one group struggling. It’s about a team that has one good game, then three bad ones. A team that looks just as confused now as they did at the start of October.

That’s a strange place to be nearly 30 games in. Most teams have figured out who they are by now—whether they’re built on speed or size, offense or defense, whether they thrive in tight games or need to outscore their problems. The Oilers still seem to be asking those questions.

Some nights, they look like a defensive team that can grind out wins. Other nights, they look like a team that needs to score five to have a chance. Some games they’re physical and engaging. Other games they’re soft and reactive. There’s no line, no consistency that carries over from game to game.

Draisaitl sees it. The room sees it. And judging by his tone, they’re not sure how to fix it yet.

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The good news, if there is any, is that they’re still in the playoff picture. The Pacific Division is tight enough that four points separate first place from where Edmonton sits now. There’s time. The schedule gets easier. Players are getting healthy.

But time only helps if you use it to build something consistent. And right now, the Oilers are still searching for what that something is.

“We have to figure that part out,” said Draisaitl.

He’s right. They do. And after a night like Tuesday, the urgency to figure it out just got a lot more real. Not because the season is over or the sky is falling, but because at some point, you have to stop searching for your game and just start playing it.

The Oilers haven’t gotten there yet. Whether they can is the question that defines where they go from here.

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