(SportsNetwork.com) - For the better part of the last decade the Edmonton Oilers have tried unsuccessfully to build a winner through the draft.

To say patience is wearing thin in Edmonton would be an enormous understatement.

Since losing to the Carolina Hurricanes as an upstart eighth seed in the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals, the Oilers have yet to make it back to the postseason, giving this once-proud franchise the longest current playoff drought in the NHL.

Even worse, the Oilers have rarely been competitive during the downturn, as the eight-season playoff drought includes five last-place finishes and only two seasons of 80 points or more. The 2013-14 campaign suggests the process is still a long way from bearing fruit, as Edmonton was the worst team in the Western Conference by a full 10 points.

The rebuild is currently in the hands of general manager Craig MacTavish, who took over for the fired Steve Tambellini in April of 2013. MacTavish has made no small number of moves since taking over the reins, but at this stage it's difficult to tell if the club is any closer to returning to the postseason.

MacTavish's club, who again will be led by head coach Dallas Eakins, is still loaded with high draft picks, but faith in the young core group seems to be eroding more every season.

Sadly, making the playoffs isn't even necessary for an Oilers season to be considered a success at this point. If the club can show some consistency and manage to reach the 80-point mark it would mark at least be a major improvement from last season's 67-point debacle.

FORWARDS - MacTavish is in Edmonton to hasten the franchise's long-gestating rebuilding project if he can, an unenviable task if their ever was one.

The GM unloaded several players via trades during the 2013-14 campaign, including forward Ales Hemsky. Centerman Sam Gagner also was dealt over the summer and winger Ryan Smyth announced his retirement at the end of the season.

Edmonton's big-name offensive prospects are still around, however, and the club hopes this is the season the young nucleus can carry the team to the playoffs.

For three straight years from 2010-12 the Oilers used the top pick at the NHL Entry Draft to land a trio of talented forwards in Taylor Hall (2010), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins ('11) and Nail Yakupov ('12).

The highly-touted forwards have had varying degrees of success at the NHL level, with Hall standing out as the best of the bunch so far. Hall led Edmonton with 80 points (27 goals, 53 assists) in 75 games last season, while Nugent-Hopkins and Yakupov posted 56 (19G, 37A) and 24 points (11G, 13A), respectively.

Yakupov will turn 21 years of age just a few days prior to the start of this season, and it could be a make-or-break year for the young Russian. If Yakupov, who has 28 goals and 27 assists over 111 games, doesn't begin producing like a former No. 1 pick, he could be the first player of the aforementioned group to get shipped out of Edmonton.

Edmonton's young forward core extends to 24-year-old winger Jordan Eberle, who was selected 22nd overall at the 2008 draft. Eberle tied David Perron for the team lead in goals (28) and also added 37 assists. He expects to play right wing on the top line with centerman Nugent-Hopkins and fellow winger Hall.

Perron figures to play right wing on line No. 2, with free agent Benoit Pouliot setting up on the left side. Pouliot skated for the New York Rangers in 2013-14 and recorded 36 points (15G, 21A) in 80 regular-season games while adding five goals and five assists in 25 postseason contests. He was lured to Edmonton with a five-year, $20 million contract.

Gagner was dealt to Tampa Bay for physical winger Teddy Purcell in the summer, and while the move gives Edmonton some much-needed size up front it does leave a hole at the No. 2 center spot. Gagner's replacement could be Leon Draisaitl, the club's first-round pick (3rd overall) at the 2014 draft, or Eakins could opt for a less heralded player, like either Mark Arcobello or Anton Lander, to fill the role.

Boyd Gordon, who had eight goals and 13 assists in 74 games last season, is penciled in as the third-line centerman alongside Yakupov and Matt Hendricks, who had three goals in 33 games with the Oilers last season following a January trade with Nashville.

Purcell and Jesse Joensuu are expected to play wing on the fourth line. If Draisaitl, who would begin the season as an 18-year-old, claims the second- line spot, either Arcobello or Lander would likely land the fourth-line pivot role.

One area Edmonton needs to improve on after last season is the power play. The club finished 21st in the league with a 17 percent success rate in 2013-14 after completing the previous season ranked eight on the man advantage (20. 1 percent). Former NHL head coach Craig Ramsay joined Eakins' staff as an assistant after last season, and one place he could offer help is getting the Oilers' power play back on track.

DEFENSE - No matter who the Oilers trotted out on defense last season, the end result wound up being a disaster.

Edmonton used 14 different defensemen in 2013-14, but MacTavish attempted to add a bit of stability to the back end through some offseason tinkering. The Oilers traded for former Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Nikita Nikitin before the draft and later signed Keith Aulie and Mark Fayne. Fayne and Nikitin could make up the club's second pairing, while Aulie, who signed a one-year, $800,000 contract, is here to add organizational depth.

Both Fayne, 27, and Nikitin, 28, offer size but not much in the way of offense. The former player had four goals and seven assists in 72 games for New Jersey last season, while Nikitin posted 15 points (2G, 13A) in 66 tilts for Columbus.

The top of Edmonton's defensive rotation likely will remain the same, as Justin Schultz returns to the No. 1 role after leading the team in ice time with 23 minutes, 20 seconds of action per game. Hopefully, the arrival of Fayne and Nikitin will allow Schultz, who had 11 goals and 33 points last season, to stay fresher and focus more on rushing the puck up ice.

Jeff Petry also is back after posting 17 points (7G, 10A) in 80 games while serving primarily as Schultz's skating partner.

Andrew Ference (3G, 15A in 2013-14) will most likely be pushed to the third pairing this season. Although, the Oilers have a pair of first-round defensive talents in the organization -- Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse -- it seems Martin Marincin, a second-round pick by Edmonton in 2010, has the inside track on a roster spot this season. Marincin had six assists in 44 games with Edmonton as a rookie in 2013-14.

GOALTENDING - Edmonton began last season with Devan Dubnyk as the No. 1 goaltender and Jason LaBarbera as his backup, but MacTavish traded both netminders during the season.

The 2014-15 Oilers will go with Ben Scrivens as a moderately-priced No. 1 after acquiring the goaltender from Los Angeles in January for a third-round pick. Scrivens went 9-11-0 with a 3.01 goals against average and .916 save percentage in 21 appearances following the trade and was rewarded with a two- year, $4.6 million contract extension in March.

Although he is 28 years old, Scrivens is getting his first real chance to be an NHL starting goalie in Edmonton and it should be interesting to see how he handles the role over the course of a full season. All told, Scrivens is 27-30-6 with a 2.69 GAA and 72 NHL appearances.

Viktor Fasth, another in-season trade acquisition by MacTavish, is older than Scrivens (32 years old) but has less NHL experience with a career 20-11-4 record and a 2.40 GAA over 37 career games. The Swedish backstop was 2-2-1 with a 2.95 GAA in five games for Anaheim before going 3-31 with a 2.73 GAA in a seven-game run with the Oilers.

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE - It would certainly be a welcome surprise if the young Oilers suddenly grew up and became a playoff team in 2014-15, but even the most die-hard Edmonton fans knows that is an unlikely scenario. With the Oilers playing in the same division as Anaheim, San Jose, Vancouver and the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings, the club still could be a few seasons away from ending its playoff drought. A more realistic timeline would see the Oilers to take small steps forward this season and next before realizing their potential as a postseason club in 2016-17, when the club expects to move into a shiny new downtown arena. For now, finishing ahead of Calgary -- another a rebuilding club from the province of Alberta -- in the Pacific Division would make 2014-15 a success. It's a low bar, but you have to start somewhere.