What the Edmonton Oilers have right now, what they’re doing right now, is more than good enough to win on most nights.

We know this because they ARE winning on most nights, a tidy 7-3-1 in their last 11 games and scoring up a storm.

But that was an important mid-season lesson they were just taught in Calgary.

The Oilers are built to rely almost entirely on their top two lines and their power play. This is by design. Their top guys are the best in the world and their power play is a lethal, almost unstoppable weapon.

That formula, when you have Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard, Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, works far more often than it doesn’t.

McDavid has 32 points in the last 12 games. Draisaitl has 25 points in the last 12 games. Hyman has eight goals in his last nine games. The power play has 12 goals in the last seven games. And so on and so on.

They are the stars. They get the big money, they get all the ice time. They get about 1:50 of every power play. They are relied on to deliver and they do.

But Saturday in Calgary is a prime example of what can happen when they run into a team that comes at you with four lines and wants to play some old school hockey.

The Flames depth players tiled the ice in Calgary’s favour by playing hard, finishing checks, kicking in some secondary offence and exacting a physical toll — which is exactly what your third and fourth liners should be bringing to a hockey game.

Edmonton doesn’t have that anymore. They lost some gamers in the off-season — Evander Kane, Corey Perry, Connor Brown — and now there is virtually none of that on this roster anymore.

If another team wants to drag a game into the alley, the Oilers are totally unarmed. If the other team’s bottom six starts making an impact, Edmonton doesn’t have an answer.

What Calgary did is not a style the Oilers are going to run into very often in the regular season, so they don’t have to worry about it as much in December and January, but scoring depth, ferocity and intimidation is exactly what they’ll be facing in the playoffs. They know this from experience.

What was the difference in the last Stanley Cup Final? Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl ran away with the playoff scoring race with 33 points each, but Florida won the championship rather convincingly.

Why? Because Florida had nine forwards with 15 or more points, the Oilers had three. Because Florida’s depth could tip the scales with offence and gamesmanship. Edmonton’s couldn’t.

Once you got past 97, 29 and 93, the Oilers fell off a cliff offensively. The next highest scoring forward was Corey Perry (gone), then Evander Kane (gone), then Zach Hyman, who missed the last seven games of the playoffs with a wrist injury. Then there were a bunch of guys with five or six points in 22 games.

This year it’s a similar story. Trent Frederic has two goals in 38 games. Mattias Janmark has one goal. Adam Henrique has two goals in 29 games. And Andrew Magiapane, after scoring in his first two games as an Oiler, has three goals in the last 37 games.

Of Edmonton’s 42 goals in the last 11 games, 27 came from McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins, five came from Draisaitl’s wingers, three came from Evan Bouchard on the power play, two came from defencemen who were out there with the first line, and two came from bottom six wingers who were out there with McDavid or Draisaitl.

So three of Edmonton’s last 42 goals came while McDavid and Draisaitl were on the bench.

Again, this is how the Oilers are built — an overwhelming force of five star platers who are expected to carry the load and a supporting cast that needs to make the most of whatever crumbs are left.

And it works. Remember, they went 7-3-1 in that 11-game span.

But even at eight or 10 minutes a night the bottom six needs to create an identity. They need to make an impact. Throw a hit, crash the net, bring some intensity. Force the coach to give them more minutes.

We’re not seeing it.

Again, what the Oilers are doing right now is good enough to win more than they lose, to win a round or two in the playoffs, but what we saw in Calgary is a sure sign of what’s waiting for them this spring — and what can happen if they don’t bolster the bottom half of their lineup.

GM Stan Bowman can either hope that some of his bottom six passengers come to life or he has to address this soft, white under belly before the trade deadline.

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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