15 reasons this NHL season took place in the Upside Down

The consensus before the NHL season was that 2017-18 was going to play out a very specific way. That did not happen.

Heading into the 2017-18 NHL season, we all, allegedly, knew the teams that were a lock for the playoffs and the players who were going to make some offensive noise.

At the other end of the scale, we just knew certain teams and players were going to fail.

But as we get deeper into the Stanley Cup playoffs and look back at the regular season, we realize that it all didn’t quite go according to the script — which is why they play the games.

We’ve seen some weird things over the years, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen stranger things than these.

15. The Oilers stunk

Most everybody with a BlackBerry or iPhone was predicting big things for the Edmonton Oilers this season.

After all, they had done the requisite big season followed by playoff learning initiation that future dynasties made up of young players must always endure before going on to bigger and more dominant things.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the parade: Cam Talbot was workhorsed to fatigue, the defense didn’t step up as expected and the forwards regressed. The result was a goal differential of minus-29 and being one game over .500 at home. Whoa. That was all sorts of opposite of what we expected — other than Connor McDavid, that is, who was his expected awesome self and won the scoring title again.

As a tangent, though, this talk of McDavid getting the Hart Tropy as the league’s most valuable player is silly. The Oilers missed the playoffs. So, where would they be without McDavid? Relegation?