I'm more concerned with their coaching. Tippett has always been a great regular season coach, but he constantly gets out coached in the playoffs.

If McLeod is starting to produce by the deadline, then could be fine. Otherwise, should go and get a 3C rental that can give dependable offence. I think Kassian and Foegele, on average, would hold their own or overpower other 3rd lines with a somewhat offensive C in the middle (I'm talking .4 to.5ppg).

4th line could use an energy guy (Archibald?). Holloway, if he is healthy and has had a dozen games or so in Bake, could also take the ace of Benson/Perlini to give a better checking option.

On D, should get a big tough LD for the playoffs to play with Barrie 5v5. Nurse-Bouch, Keith-Ceci, Trade-Barrie should do fine.

At goal, just depends on who is hot. Nice to know Skinner is a real NHL option. Maybe there will be a trade for a proven playoff starter(who isn't 40 and injury prone), but with what seems like 3 decent goalies, might be fine to just roll into the playoffs with who is hot.

imo it depends on where their goaltending’s at. if smith/koskinen/whoever is hot, they can def make a run, but they’re not super consistent and goalies are voodoo. i don’t love the defense, i think it’s decent but not great, but bad goaltending could sink the team for sure

I think the team is evolving towards a playoff built roster. The way Holland has built that third line really speaks volumes for the direction he’s going in.

I definitely see them making an addition or two are the deadline

Defence is trash. Keith and Barrie are 3rd pairing dmen. Ceci is a fringe 2nd pairing dman but he better on the 3rd pairing. Bouchard still needs to improve a bit more defensively and Broberg looked great in his 1st game but I wouldn’t be confident with him on the 2nd pairing.

Its likely the Oilers will add depth at the deadline, I think its too early to assume they will add any key pieces.

IMO, they need to clean up their defensive play between the hash marks and the blue line. To my eye, that is where they tend to give up pucks. Sometimes its a poorly executed pass from the boards to the middle, sometimes it a poorly executed pass from below the goal line to boards, and some times the Oilers are imply out-muscled along the boards. Regardless of how the break-out fails, it usually leads to an opposition cycle in the Oiler d-zone. The team is build to retrieve the puck in the d-zone and quickly get it to the forwards at speed so that the Oilers spend as little time as possible in their own end. When they do spend time in their end, their system seems to be focused on allowing low-danger shots and trying to retrieve the puck quickly in order to try the fast breakout again.

That style seems risky for playoff hockey, as officials tend to let teams get away with a lot of questionable tactics that slow the transition game.