Has fatigue finally caught up to the Oilers?

The Edmonton Oilers have played a lot of hockey over the last few years.

In fact, since the start of the 2022-23 season — the last two full seasons and through Saturday night’s games — they’ve played 280 combined regular season and post-season games. That’s the third most in the entire league.

That’s 25 more games than the league average over that time, and 37 more games than any team who hasn’t made the playoffs. If you take it back one season further to include the 2021-22 season and it’s playoffs, it’s 36 games over the league average and 53 more than non-playoff teams.

In 2021-22 and 2022-23, they played an extra month of hockey, while last year, it was two extra months of hockey. Quick math is four extra months of hockey, travel and an inability to recover over the last three years. It may not seem like much on paper, but this kind of stuff can add up.

The Oilers have found themselves in a position where one has to wonder if it’s catching up to them. There’s been long stretches this season where the team has struggled to play at the top of their game and that’s been the case more often than not. Now, with three games left in the regular season before another first-round matchup with the Los Angeles Kings, the Oilers have a crowded infirmary.

Evander Kane. Mattias Ekholm. Leon Draisaitl. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Zach Hyman. Jake Walman. John Klingberg. Trent Frederic.

Kane has missed the entirety of the season after undergoing significant abdominal surgery last September. Ekholm’s injury is unknown, but he’s battled injury and illness all year and a report Saturday indicated his season could be over. Draisaitl’s is unknown, but missed four games in March, returned for eight periods, and left with another injury. Nugent-Hopkins is battling an illness. Hyman was innocuously hurt last week against the Blues. Then there’s Connor McDavid, who for the second straight year, has missed a notable amount of games, pacing to play his fewest regular season games since his rookie year when he broke his collarbone.

In short, these guys have played a lot of hockey.

While this is clearly an issue for the Oilers, it’s also the case for other teams who have played a lot of hockey over the last few seasons. Looking at the other teams who have played the most since the start of the 2022-23 season, the Florida Panthers, who lead with 289 games, are without Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett due to injury, while Aaron Ekblad is currently serving a suspension for getting popped for using performance enhancing drugs.

The Dallas Stars, second with 282 games, have been without Tyler Seguin since December due to hip surgery and Miro Hesikanan since the February with a knee injury. The Vegas Golden Knights, fourth with 273 games, are without Jack Eichel and Alex Pietrangelo.

Edmonton’s undoubtedly been hit harder than these clubs. Is it bad luck? That likely plays into it. Were some of these players rushed back a little early? It’s possible, but there’s another clear identifier that’s an issue for the team: they’re getting older, and doing so fast.

The average age of their forwards and defencemen is 29.7 years old, increasing by 2.3 years since the start of the 2021-22 season, according to HockeyViz. Their forward group has risen 3.9 years in average age, while their blue line just 0.7 years old.