Frank Seravalli

The arrival of Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson.

It's been, you could write a book just on this season alone.

But I think when you compare this year...

As much in some ways as this year might feel like the Oilers are in a more precarious position, they're probably way better situated roster-wise to compete and chase for that Stanley Cup than they have been of late.

That's not how I look at it, and I don't think the regular season means jack squat, to be honest.

All right.

Okay.

This team will be graded purely based on –

success and results and then after getting to two consecutive stanley cup finals that's also what makes this season really difficult for this team is that the standard is so high that it's either win or anything else doesn't matter and that's a it's a great bar to have that

as your measurement for success, but it also doesn't really leave a lot of wiggle room if you don't hit it.

And so I think part of that is absolutely true as well.

But I think the makeup of this team is probably a little bit better situated as well.

I think in addition to Paul Coffey having an ability to stabilize things, Connor Murphy has been the true defender that they needed.

And we haven't seen the full scope or scale of the Jason Dickinson impact.

He's not going to win you any awards.

Right.

But what he is is very competent.

And he also competes.

So then you look at the goaltending position.

And it's going to sound funny to say, but I think that they're really better positioned with Connor Ingram in that than they would have been with Stuart Skinner.