Can the Edmonton Oilers Find More Consistency with Defense and Goaltending

Edmonton Oilers Could Find More Consistent Goaltending and Defense Next Season

TSN: Hockey Analyst Frankie Corrado joined Jay Onrait last week on SportsCenter as he broke down the one burning question facing the seven Canadian teams. Moving to the Western Conference, Corrado believes the biggest question facing the Edmonton Oilers is the balance and consistency they get from their defense and goaltending.

** NHLRumors.com transcriptions

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Jay Onrait: “Join one final time for this season by our hockey analyst, Frankie Corrado. It’s coach questions about the Western Edition and Frankie this is the last time we’ll talk to you until September. The rosters of most of the NHL teams are pretty much set. So what I’m going to ask you to do is make yourself each of these teams head coach and I’m going to ask you the biggest question on the minds of all these Canadian head coaches right now.

We’re going to start with the Edmonton Oilers. They add Viktor Arvidsson, they add Jeff Skinner to an already impressive forward group. They pretty much run back all the players that took them to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. If you’re Kris Knoblauch, Frankie, what are you thinking when you look at this roster?”

Frankie Corrado: “So I think I see a very explosive offense Jay and I can account for this team scoring a lot of goals. And they improved a lot defensively and Stuart Skinner played well at times. But I guess the biggest question I want to ask is, is there going to be a big discrepancy between how good my team is offensively and what I get from my D corps and my goaltending?

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Like this team is going to be potent. You’re going to be led by McDavid and Draisaitl. Like you’re gonna have a lot to give there offensively but as a D core, can they take another step? The goaltending, Stuart Skinner, can he be really consistent like when we see him play really well? Can he do that more often? And if that’s the case, you don’t have such a discrepancy between how good you are defensively and maybe what there might not be defensively.

And you know, let’s be fair, the team improved a lot defensively as the season went on last year when Knoblauch took over, but maybe making sure there’s less of a discrepancy between the forwards and the D and the goalie would probably be the biggest question for Chris Knoblauch.”