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And you thought last year's edition of the Edmonton Oilers got off to a terrible, terrible, no good, very bad start?

The current team might as well have started this season with an orange and blue banner that read, “Hold my beer.”

While the sample size has been small so far in terms of early starts, this was about the worst since 2015 – back when a certain first overall draft pick named Connor McDavid was taking his first steps in the NHL.

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Heading into Tuesday's game against the visiting Philadelphia Flyers, the Oilers were threatening to go 0-4 for the first time since then.

Somehow, things had started even worse than last year, en route to a franchise-low 2-9-1 that, despite a .643 winning percentage, spelled the end for head coach Jay Woodcroft in Edmonton.

That was the club's best value until he moved. Kris Knoblauch hit .700, putting the team back on track to advance to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

That's the part we knew.

The part we didn't know was that they would follow the same formula again this season – unproven and unlikely as it is.

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And while it's highly unlikely that, no matter how bad things turn out this time, the Oilers leadership can even hope to pull the trigger on another coaching change and have it work out even half as well, you can bet that that garlic feels like it's in the proverbial hot seat.

Hence the decision to go with the Oilers' tried and true fallback plan…or is that a “fallout” considering it's only been four games and they've already combined their two biggest talents, McDavid and Leon Draisaitl , two of the best centers there are? Find them in the league, on the same line.

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It's the nuclear option because if things don't go according to plan, there's nothing left in the Oilers' arsenal. So forgive them if they had to suppress at least a little bit the feeling that Tuesday was a matter of life or death.

“Just, I think, for them all to feel it, have the puck and play,” Knoblauch said of the reasons for his lineup changes during Tuesday morning’s skate. “At the moment, any experienced player or any player in particular feels a lot better when they get the first goal or the first assist.

“And hopefully they can do their best with our best players.”

The dynamic duo, of course, appears together on the Oilers' power play, which was mediocre at 20 percent after going 1-5 in three games.

Now it's time to find out how McDavid and Draisaitl stack up against one another.

Then again, getting pucks in is only part of the equation that the Oilers are buried under.

“I think we had enough chances to score more goals than we scored,” Draisaitl said Tuesday morning. “So I don’t think it’s just because of defense, but I think our starting point has to be defense and we have to worry about just keeping the puck out of our net.

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“And that gives us a chance every night.”

A chance, sure. But what they really need to find are answers. Mainly why one of the NHL's most potent offenses hasn't been able to dig its way out of the water since they last went 0-3 in the Stanley Cup Final.

“It's not ideal. “It’s not the place we wanted to be,” Draisaitl said. “We were keen to get off to a good start but we didn't manage to do that, so of course there is some frustration.

“Tonight is a big chance for us to get a win and go from there. And we’re building our game and getting better every day.”

Podkolzin up, Skinner down

Knoblauch also moved newcomer Vasily Podkolzin to the second line alongside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Viktor Arvidsson, leaving Jeff Skinner as the odd man out – although he was the only Oilers player to score at 5-on-5 without an opposing defender's own goal.

Skinner's name was on the third line Tuesday.

At the same time, the defense put a lot of strain on the team, which was defeated by a ratio of 5:1 in the first three games.

After four games, Darnell Nurse was paired with his third partner of the season as the Oilers continue to look for replacements like Cody Ceci, Vincent Desharnais and Philip Broberg – hardly the three worst losses an NHL team has ever had to recover from. But it became increasingly clear that these were pieces that fit well here.

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“I think it's important when building chemistry that you have the right partner to play with and know what everyone wants,” Knoblauch said. “But we also have other couples where we try to build chemistry.

“It’s not ideal that Darnell had as many partners as he did.”

Email: [email protected]

On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge

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