{"id":294302,"date":"2025-11-10T04:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T04:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/294302\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T04:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T04:17:12","slug":"referees-draw-criticism-for-bizarre-oilers-trend-emerging-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/294302\/","title":{"rendered":"Referees draw criticism for bizarre Oilers trend emerging this season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/612975.webp.webp\" style=\"width:100%;\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Oilers' Connor McDavid carries puck into offensive-zone during regular season action\" title=\"Oilers' Connor McDavid carries puck into offensive-zone during regular season action\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: Perry Nelson &#8211; Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>According to a recent report, the Edmonton Oilers are drawing the least amount of penalties in the league this year.<\/p>\n<p>Whether lack of effort or lack of calls, Oilers not getting enough powerplay-time<\/p>\n<p>The Oilers, of course, are not new to being overlooked by the referees, as seemed to be the case in last year&#8217;s post-season, when McDavid suggested the refs were being weak on penalty calls.<\/p>\n<p>Oilers coach Knoblauch had also commented on the team&#8217;s penalty-disparity, making an effort to not over-step his boundaries.<\/p>\n<p>The more time you defend, the more time you&#8217;re position to take penalties. And, um. You know, (Laughs) I&#8217;ll get away from that. No criticism on the officials or anything, but just our position on powerplays for and against.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Coach Knoblauch<\/p>\n<p>This season, however, the circumstances are somewhat different. When at their best, the Oilers have possession play with high-possession and with intensity, controlling the game with skill and in transition, getting calls against because they&#8217;ve earned them.<\/p>\n<p>That has not been the case this season. I&#8217;m not saying it&#8217;s right that the Oilers are not getting its fair share of penalty calls from the refs. Yet, it&#8217;s how referees call the game. When your moving your legs on the ice and playing hard, you&#8217;re more likely to get the penalty call against.<\/p>\n<p>By McDavid&#8217;s own admission, the team has not played the right way this season, saying that the Oilers &#8216;need to start by simply doing the little things right, citing that the squad&#8217;s flow has felt disconnected, making things difficult for Edmonton to play the way that makes them successful.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not closing them out, something we&#8217;re normally quite good at. That hasn&#8217;t been the trend this year, something we have to figure out. And it&#8217;s been that way for a little bit,\u00bb McDavid said. &#8220;We have to get on the forecheck, get some pucks back, get through the neutral zone, that&#8217;s been a real problem for us, and we have to find a way to do a better job of it.\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>When the Oilers play like that, they&#8217;ll get the calls from the referees. Unfortunately, that&#8217;s just the way it is.<\/p>\n<p>Previously on Oilers Daily<\/p>\n<p>POLL<\/p>\n<p>3 HOURS AGO\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0153 ANSWERS<\/p>\n<p>Referees draw criticism for bizarre Oilers trend emerging this season<\/p>\n<p>Are the refs calling less penalties against the Oilers&#8217; opposition?<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo credit: Perry Nelson &#8211; Imagn Images According to a recent report, the Edmonton Oilers are drawing the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[25489,155,198,146,5300,5,2854,4,60,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-294302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-2025-2026-nhl-season","9":"tag-connor-mcdavid","10":"tag-edmonton","11":"tag-edmonton-oilers","12":"tag-edmontonoilers","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-kris-knoblauch","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-nhl-playoffs","17":"tag-oilers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115523475542920348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}