Can the Edmonton Oilers have a historically good offence in 2024-25?

The other week, I looked at how many Oilers had a realistic shot at scoring 20 goals next season. After going through the list, it got me thinking about just how good the 2024-25 Oilers offence could be Of course, any team with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on it is going to find a way to produce a lot of offence, but with the summer moves that the Oilers have made, there is good reason to think that next year’s version of the team could be the best that we’ve seen in the McDavid era.

Starting at the top of the roster, both McDavid and Draisaitl should actually be more productive next season than they were in 2023-24.
Last season, McDavid scored just 50% of the goals he did the year before. He barely hit the 30-goal mark after leading the league with 64. His point total also fell by 21 points.

McDavid only missed six games because of injury, but he was not at 100% for some long stretches last season. Assuming he’s back to his usual form, I fully expect him to be back in the 40-goal, 140-point range at a minimum.
As for Draisaitl, his shooting percentage fell by a few points and was actually the lowest it’s been in three seasons. Not by a lot, but it still dipped down as he finished with fewer than 50 goals for the first time since 2020-21. With the talent added around him, I think he could jump back to the 50-goal mark, which he’s done three times in his career.
The two big guns are the main propellers of the offence and even with them not having great seasons by their standards in 2023-24, the Oilers still finished fourth in the league in goals per game at 3.56.

Again, I think it’s fair to expect an uptick in that production, especially if they don’t get off to a slow start next season, but how high can this team soar?
Well, the best offence that the league has seen since the year 2000 was the 2021-22 Florida Panthers. They scored 4.11 goals per game and are actually the only team in that span to average more than four goals per game throughout the course of a full season.
The second-best team in that span is actually the 2022-23 Edmonton Oilers, who finished with 3.96. So this core has proven that they can get close to that mark.
That season, the Oilers had 13 different players hit double-digits in goals and McDavid and Draisaitl combined for a whopping 116 of the teams 325 goals. The supporting cast performed well, but the two superstars did the bulk of the scoring. Both Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins did both crack the 35-goal mark as well.

Those four players combined for 58% of the Oilers goals. That’s insane.
Anyways, back to the question at hand, can the Oilers become just the second team this century to crack the 4.00 goal-per-game mark? Can they pass the Panthers’ mark of 4.11?
I think it’s entirely possible.

I just talked about how McDavid and Draisaitl should be more productive than they were last season but there are other reasons to believe that this team will be way more productive than they were last season.
First off, the group they’ll start this season with is much better than the group that began last year with.
Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele are out and replacing them are Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, and Adam Henrique.

Over the last three seasons, Arvidsson has averaged 26.48 goals per 82 games. If he can stay healthy, he should be right around that mark.

Jeff Skinner struggled down the stretch with the Sabres but he still finished with 24 goals last season and had back-to-back 30-goal seasons before that.
The thing I love about Skinner and Arvidsson is that neither relied heavily on power play time to produce their goals. Skinner for example only scored 21 of his 92 goals on the power play over the last three seasons. Take those away and he should still be a 20-25 goal guy on the Oilers

While the team did lose 20-goal scorer Warren Foegele, they added two players with higher upside to their top nine. Adam Henrique should easily cover the offence that the Oilers will lose in Ryan McLeod as well.
As for players who could regress, Zach Hyman would be the first name that people will bring up. I’m not sure if he has the ability to hit the 50-goal mark again next season, but he should be able to get back into the 40-goal range, or at least close to it.