A big difference.

One of the things that really frustrates me about any professional sports teams is that, people who aren't fans of certain teams or don't constantly follow the teams, tend to have a poor idea of what's going on behind the scenes. For me, this is especially true when people who don't like or don't follow the Oilers a lot, tend to make opinionated statements without looking at the facts.

When people look at the Edmonton Oilers record from this past season and look at where they finished in the league, they are quick to jump onto the ever familiar and long running, Oilers hate-train. More importantly, these people haven't done the proper research and haven't even looked at some of the stats from the Oilers this season. They just look at the record and say "Guess Edmonton still sucks". Now I don't expect EVERYBODY to follow or like the Edmonton Oilers. Hockey is a proffesional sport and people are allowed to follow and support their favorite club(s). But I just wanted to throw out a few stats comparing the difference between the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 season for the Edmonton Oilers.

First of all, the Oilers showed tremendous improvement this season. And to prove that, let's compare the record of the 2015-2016 Oilers with the record of the 2014-2015 Oilers. At the end of the 2014-2015 campaign, the Oilers finished with a record of 24 wins, 44 regulation losses, and 14 overtime/shootout losses. This gave the Oilers a final point total of 62 pts, with the Oilers finished 28th in the league. However in the 2015-2016 season, the Oilers finished with a record of 31 wins, 43 regulation losses, and 8 overtime/shootout losses worthy of 70 pts.

So what does this comparison prove? That in 2015-2016, the entire league overall improved. Had the Oilers finished with 70 pts in the 2014-2015 season, they would've finished in 27th overall in the league. Not convinced by the overall W-L-OTL-P record? That's alright. Here are a few more stats that pertain to the Oilers' home and away records, as well as their records when leading or trailing after the first 1st and/or second period.

W + L when leading or trailing after 1st and 2nd periods

2014/2015:

When leading after period 1: 10-7-6
When leading after period 2: 17-4-6
When trailing after period 1: 2-24-5
When trailing after period 2: 2-32-3

2015/2016:

When leading after period 1: 17-3-2
When leading after period 2: 18-2-1
When trailing after period 1: 5-22-2
When trailing after period 2:4-33-4

Home + Away Record

2014/2015 Home Record: 15-23-3
2014/2015 Road Record:9-21-11

2015/2016 Home Record: 19-20-2
2015/2016 Road Record: 12-23-6

Now obviously I can put a bunch of stats to prove my point. But that would take way too much time and effort to do so I'll leave it like this for now. But the differences between the 14/15 and 15/16 seasons prove that like the rest of the league, the Oilers improved overall. And it doesn't end there. Look at the records of the Oilers from 2010 - 2016 and you can see why the 2015/2016 was the best season for the Oilers in a long, long time.