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For many fans, that’s good enough to decide this matter, and I respect that line of reasoning to some extent, even as I don’t find it entirely convincing. There have been all kinds of roster changes on the Oilers this year, along with better health from key players, and solid improvement from others.

Who is to say that with Hall here and not Larsson the Oilers wouldn’t be winning even more?

That said, there is some evidence that I do find more convincing, and which certainly bolsters whatever we want to take from the team’s vastly improved won-loss record and goal differential.

Hockey is a game where the best players make a huge difference in helping a team win and the worst players do much to cause a team to lose. We all know what a top centre and a top goalie can do, as well as the havoc caused from a bad goalie or from one or two or three d-men who get eaten up alive in their own zone. In a previous post,I dug into how much better both on the attack and on defence the Oilers defence this year is, with Adam Larsson playing a major role in that improvement, not only playing strong hockey at right defence on the Oil’s top-pairing, but replacing players who failed unequivocally in that same role last year, defenders like Justin Schultz and Mark Fayne.

In response to that post, however, some folks quite rightly noted it was one thing to improve the defence, but what about forward? With Hall gone, weren’t the Oilers greatly weakened there?

Oilers forwards the same on the attack at even strength

When we dig into the specific individual contributions of Oilers forwards on the attack, we see that even without Hall — who is an extraordinary attacker — the Oilers have had almost the exact same production.