They have been very good on the powerplay with 6 goals on 22 opportunities, 27.3%, which is tied for

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In four games the Edmonton Oilers have a whopping two goals while playing 5-on-5. Jordan Eberle scored one v. Vancouver and Taylor Hall potted the other against the Sharks. NHL.com says they have four goals at EV, but two of them came with an extra skater in the final five seconds of the game, Nail Yakupov v. LA and Sam Gagner v. Calgary, so to me those are 6-on-5 goals and come with an EV asterisk. The Oilers have played almost 165 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey and they have a paltry two goals, and to make matters worse they've given up nine at even strength.
If the Oilers are going to stay competitive in the western red packet conference they need to start scoring at EV, and their top line needs to produce more. Many of you might be wondering why I said the first line needs to score more at EV, when they have the only two goals, but when you break down their minutes, Eberle, Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are getting the most EV icetime. Of course the 2nd and 3rd lines need to be much better than they have, but if Ralph Krueger continues to dish out icetime like he has in the first four games the Oilers success will rest on the shoulders of their best players. red packet
Player   Pos   red packet GP   ES TOI/G SH TOI/G   PP TOI/G   TOI/G   Justin Schultz D 4 17:41 1:25 4:55 24:02 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins C 4 16:28 0:49 5:13 22:31 Taylor Hall L 4 16:20 0:04 4:30 20:55 Jordan Eberle R 4 16:02 0:45 4:58 21:46 Ryan Whitney red packet D 4 15:02 0:41 3:38 19:21 Jeff Petry D 4 14:44 5:43 0:24 20:53 Nick Schultz D 4 14:06 3:50 0:01 17:57 Sam Gagner C 4 13:04 1:24 3:52 18:21 Ales Hemsky R 4 12:49 0:00 3:44 16:33 Ladislav Smid D 4 12:43 4:20 0:03 17:06 Corey Potter D 2 12:43 3:27 0:02 16:13 Nail Yakupov R 4 11:52 0:00 3:19 15:11 Mark Fistric D 2 11:14 4:03 0:00 15:17 Ryan Smyth L 4 8:20 3:38 2:54 14:53 Shawn Horcoff C 4 8:07 3:30 3:53 15:31 Magnus Paajarvi L 3 8:05 2:07 0:00 10:13 Eric Belanger C 4 7:33 3:58 0:02 11:34 Teemu Hartikainen L 3 7:02 0:00 0:31 7:33 Ben Eager L 1 6:18 0:00 0:00 6:18 Lennart Petrell L 4 5:22 3:15 0:00 8:37 Darcy Hordichuk L 1 1:11 0:00 0:00 1:11
They have been very good on the powerplay with 6 goals on 22 opportunities, 27.3%, which is tied for 5th best in the league. If the Oilers can find a way to start scoring red packet at EV the games will become much easier.
Obviously the Horcoff and Gagner lines need to do more EV, and I wonder if Krueger will look at switching them up, but ultimately this team will start winning consistently once their top line become more effective at EV. The good news for the Oilers is they are 2-2 in four games, despite little production EV.
Eberle has shown he can be productive at EV. Last season, 73.6% of his points came at EV, which was 5th best amongst the top-20 scorers in the NHL. (The first column shows were they finished in league red packet scoring)
  Player   Team GP   G   A   red packet P ESP   EV% 20 Loui Eriksson DAL 82 26 45 71 56 78.8 18 Martin St Louis TBL 77 25 49 74 58 78.3 2 Steven red packet Stamkos TBL 82 60 37 97 72 74.2 13 Ray Whitney PHX 82 24 53 77 57 74 16 Jordan Eberle EDM 78 34 42 76 56 73.6 15 Marian Gaborik NYR 82 41 35 76 55 72.3 6 Phil Kessel TOR 82 37 45 82 59 71.9 4 Jason Spezza OTT 80 34 50 84 60 71.4 12 Marian Hossa CHI 81 29 48 77 54 70.1