The Edmonton Oilers are trending up in these early days of the 2025-26 season, but a few veteran players are trending down. Article content

The key ingredient in this improvement has been slot defence. Last year the Oilers gave up 5.8 of the most dangerous shots per game. I’m referring here to wide open looks often coming on cross-ice passes into the slot, which the Cult of Hockey refers to as 5-alarm shots. Article content Article content

So far this year that number is down significantly to just four 5-alarm shots against per game. That’s a massive improvement, 5.8 to 4.0.

The improvement is even more drastic if we consider the 2025 playoffs, when the Oil gave up 6.9 5-alarm shots per game.

Of course, these are early days and the sample size is exceedingly small. It’s also the

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