'It's early': NHL insider rightly sounds cautious note about Babcock's Edmonton Oilers

This in from long-time NHL broadcast executive John Shannon, host of the excellent 100% Hockey podcast, his take that it’s simply too early to make any sound judgement about the overall state of Mike Babcock’s 2026-27 Edmonton Oilers.

Speaking with Bob Stauffer of Oilers Now, Shannon said, “I think that the key word in all this is ‘early.’ Yeah. Because if the team was 0-4-1, rather than 4-0-1, or whatever the number is, we’d be saying, ‘Well, it’s early.’ And so I do think that the phrase is applicable when the team is off to a great start. Is it a lot nicer, a lot more relaxed, a lot more fun for the fans and everybody in the organization, that they have no regulation losses? Absolutely. It’s a ton of fun.”

Shannon continued: “But at the same time, what you have to really look at in all of this stuff is: Is there progress amongst the new guys? I’m not worried about Connor (McDavid), not worried about Leon (Draisaitl) or Evan Bouchard, but are we seeing progress from a guy like Ryan Shea? You talked about (d-man Ty) Emberson. You know, is there progress there? You know, and I think that that to me is how you can apply what’s right or wrong or going right or wrong with the hockey club right now… And, by the way, is there progress in goal? Which might be the biggest one. And what we’ve seen particularly at Devon Levi is as impressive as I think that could have been expected, knowing full well that the goalies that are on this team were quote unquote had some damaged goods. And right now, things are looking healthy when it comes to goaltending.”

1. Shannon makes a good point here. Indeed, as he says, it’s early. Way early.

Edmonton has five wins in six games, but it’s got those wins against an array of Pillow Division foes: Seattle, now ranked seventh overall in the NHL, Anaheim, 14th, San Jose, 24th, Vancouver, ranked 27th, and Los Angeles, ranked 32nd.

It’s a helluva lot better to win five games out of six than to win just two or three, but when we consider the quality of opposition and the small sample size of games, we should be cautious about considering all that ailed the Oilers last season to be cured.

2. By late November, after 20 or 25 games, we’ll have a much better sense of where the Oilers are. We’ll even know more by this coming Sunday after two games with high-powered Utah.

3. That said, the disciplined hockey that the Oilers have played has been encouraging. After the nerves of the first two games against Vancouver, we didn’t see many glaring examples of the bad habits that marked the Oilers last season until Leon Draisaitl turned over the puck with a 3-0 lead late in the second period against Los Angeles, a backhanded hope pass that kicked off the sequence of pain on first Kings goal. It was the kind of unnecessary and careless play that had me reliving so many others like it last season when the Oilers could not hold a lead.

But with the help of Devon Levi in net, the Oilers thwarted the momentum of the Kings.

4. As for some of the questions that Shannon asked, Ryan Shea has so far been smart and solid on defence, as has Ty Emberson, with Levi winning over fans in net. But there are more questions, including around the commitment of Edmonton’s star players to keep playing disciplined hockey.

Of course, Draisaitl has been generally outstanding in terms of his two-way play this year. I’ve rarely seen him work harder when the team doesn’t have the puck. And he doesn’t have to be perfect to win anyone’s admiration. But he does have to lead the way in playing championship defensive hockey if Edmonton is going to win the Stanley Cup.

Whether or not that will happen remains an unknown. He and the other Oilers star and superstar players are capable of defending at that high level. But six games is too early to know if they can do so consistently against the NHL’s best teams.