So the sky is falling in Edmonton again.

And it's hard to blame Oilers fans given they have watched this movie before – as recently as the start of last season, when netminder Devan Dubnyk's career went off the rails.

Edmonton has had a tough schedule to start the year, but more than that they've had some very tough luck. Their PDO – which is an analytic used to measure which teams are (or aren't) getting the bounces – is a league-worst 90.8, which helps explain some of their woes.

PDO is one of those stats that sounds nonsensical the first time it's brought up but it's eerily accurate in forecasting a team's fortunes, year after year.

So bear with me a moment while I explain how it applies here.

What PDO is is simply the addition of shooting and save percentage at even strength. The Oilers right now have a shooting percentage of under 5 per cent (third worst in the NHL) and a save percentage of .858 (second worst).

We're dealing with very small sample sizes at this point of the year so you can't always draw a lot of conclusions. If you look closely at what Edmonton's done so far, however, they have made tangible gains in terms of driving play.

Having a low PDO isn't sustainable. The worst a team has finished in an 82-game season in recent memory was the 2010-11 Ottawa Senators at 97.4, which tells us that the Oilers are a) going to score more goals and b) are going to get a few more saves than they have been.

Last season, through the first 12 days of the year (which is where we're at now), the three lowest PDO teams were the New York Rangers, Washington Capitals and Los Angeles Kings, who started the season with a combined five wins in 15 games.

Two of those teams made the Stanley Cup final. All three topped 90 points.

That's not to say the Oilers are a contender or Ben Scrivens is Jonathan Quick or Henrik Lundqvist. It's meant to point out that even the best teams can look much worse than they are in small sample sizes and with a low PDO.

All of the possession stats out there have Edmonton greatly improved over a year ago, which has been one of coach Dallas Eakins's key mandates and a big reason they hired statistician Tyler Dellow. This is an organization that now understands PDO and that is trying to be patient while fans and media go nuts around it.

Some of the errors the Oilers young players have been making have been egregious, but they have had the puck more. With their talent, they should at the very least be able to finish a lot higher than 28th in 5-on-5 goals, as was the case last year.

That may be a thin gruel for one of the league's most mistreated fan bases to subsist on right now, but everything we've seen in the past says things will get better in Edmonton in the near term.

Better enough to make the playoffs? Probably not. But if they stick with what they're doing and Scrivens can get back to the goalie he was last season, better enough to not be a lottery team and start the climb up the mountain that is the Western Conference standings.