Most of the debate around the Edmonton Oilers this preseason has been about whether they can get back to the Stanley Cup Final. Jay Rosehill isn’t even convinced they’ll make the playoffs.
The former NHL enforcer, who spent time with Toronto and Philadelphia before moving into broadcasting, laid out his prediction on The Sheet. It’s a genuinely striking one given where the roster has been. Edmonton reached back-to-back Finals under Kris Knoblauch, who was replaced by Mike Babcock in June, and TSN was framing the season as a question of whether the Oilers return to the Final rather than whether they qualify at all.
Bold take on the Oilers
Rosehill went the other way entirely, predicting Edmonton misses the postseason. The pushback was immediate, with the argument that the Oilers should not only make it but win the Pacific, a “pillow fight division” soft enough to make it straightforward. Rosehill wasn’t moved.
“I think that’s pretty bold, but as far as being contenders, I don’t see them being any better than they were,” Rosehill said. “I think the frustration has set in already, and that little thumpin’ piece inside of their hearts is going, ‘we missed our window.’ And I think that Babcock is only going to bring that more and more to the forefront. All that frustration.”
He then put a blunt label on where he expects it to end up.
“I see it going south,” Rosehill said.
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That phrasing wasn’t a coincidence. Back in June, after Babcock’s introductory press conference, Rosehill used almost exactly the same words on X.
“Doesn’t appear Babcock has changed much,” he wrote at the time. “Talking in the third person about being all in for Mike Babcock? This could end up going south in a hurry.”
He isn’t the only one questioning whether the change moves the needle. In his bold predictions column for the season, ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski forecast that Babcock makes no statistical difference for Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl, noting that neither is likely to top what they produced under Knoblauch.
Babcock, for his part, has spent the preseason talking about finding depth to support his two stars, telling TSN before Edmonton’s first exhibition game that the supporting cast around McDavid and Draisaitl is where the season will be decided.
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