Twelve days have passed since Stan Bowman was named the General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers. Twelve quiet days on the roster front, with no transactions of any type to this point. The roster remains exactly as it was on July 24, the day Bowman was hired.
Meaning there’s still time for us to renew a time-honoured Cult of Hockey tradition, of analyzing the roster inherited by each new GM as he takes the reins.
- 2013 — The roster Craig MacTavish inherited from Steve Tambellini
- 2015 — The roster Peter Chiarelli inherited from MacTavish
- 2019 — The roster Ken Holland inherited from Chiarelli / Keith Gretzky
While ancient history, each is an instructive read about the state of the Oilers at a time of turmoil, as is the case almost anytime a GM change takes place.
The good news in the current instance is that Bowman takes over a stable group with enviable top-end talent and loads of experience. There are salary cap headaches which will need some sort of creative solution, but a contender right out of the box.
At this moment the Oilers have 43 players under contract, and 2 more Restricted Free Agents who have been tendered qualifying offers. Meaning that essentially 45 of the 50 available contracts are accounted for, and that the rosters of both the Oilers and their top farm club are largely set.
Projected NHL roster
Standard 23-man roster here, with 13 forwards, 8 defencemen and 2 goalies based entirely on which roster players were NHLers at the completion of last season. Every player named here played over 20 regular season and playoff games, with the most marginal case — RFA d-man Philip Broberg — playing 12 regular season games plus the final 10 playoff games. With his waiver exemption status set to expire, I can think of no scenario in which this player won’t be a full-time NHLer in 2024-25.
Similar applies to UFA forward Dylan Holloway, who like Broberg spent some time in the AHL last season but almost certainly will not in the season/s to come. In each case, Bowman has to take care of an important detail, namely to negotiate some sort of bridge contract which projects as relatively cheap if a one-year pact, but progressively more expensive should any sort of term be included.
It’s a deep and experienced crew, especially up front where all but Holloway have played over 500 games in the NHL. 9 of the 12 veterans have averaged at least 23 goals and 48 points per 82 NHL games. Connor McDavid is the second youngest forward of the bunch at 27, and he’s about to play his tenth NHL season for goodness sakes.
The situation is a bit more tenuous on the back end, though the emergence of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard as one of the best pairings in the entire league has gone a long way to improve the club’s fortunes pretty much since the day Ekholm arrived by trade just before the deadline in 2023. The second pairing as listed isn’t cheap and has had its issues. A couple of depth guys have been added, but much will depend on the continuing emergence of Broberg after his promising showing in the pressure cooker of the conference and Stanley Cup finals.
One of the best contracts Holland signed during his time here was the 3-year extension to up-and-coming goaltender Stu Skinner partway through his breakout 2022-23 season that landed him on the NHL’s All-Rookie Team. Skinner covered the first year of that $2.6 million bet in 2023-24, while backup Calvin Pickard also delivered the goods in a limited role. Alas, Holland’s biggest contractual mistake also occurred in net, and will linger for another six years after the recent buyout of Jack Campbell.
A chronological history of the projected roster
Where did the team come from? When, how and by whom were they acquired? What is their current contractual status? Here’s a handy table with the important details:
Forwards shown in red, defencemen in blue, goalies in green, all players listed in chronological order of when they became Oilers. The majority of them have signed multiple contracts with the organization, with the current one listed in the right side of the table.
I’ve highlighted the essential work done by Jeff Jackson during his month as the caretaker/transitional GM. He effectively took over the moment the season wound down after which Ken Holland disappeared from the scene. Jackson immediately set about handling the GM’s duties of issuing (or not issuing) qualifying offers, making trades, running the draft table, and signing free agents both internal and external. He also reached critical decisions to cut ties with Jack Campbell (bought out), Warren Foegele and Vincent Desharnais (not extended) and Ryan McLeod (traded).
Jackson was extraordinarily active during his few weeks on the job. Important to note that those weeks encompassed the busiest time of the year, and he handled the challenge with alacrity. Many Oil fans stated a preference that he simply take on the job full time, but he passed the mantle to Bowman a month to the day after the Oilers fell in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
What a month it was, though. As the table shows, no fewer than 9 of the 21 contracts currently projected on next year’s team were signed by Jackson himself, 10 if you count the one he participated in as McDavid’s agent way back when.Of the new ones, none were longer than 3 years or for a total value exceeding 7 figures.
Another 9 ongoing contracts were signed by Holland over the course of his half-decade here, 6 of them for 4 years or more. The 2 most important ones, McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, date back to Chiarelli and represent his most lasting legacy. A single contract (Ekholm) was signed by another team and acquired by trade with significant term remaining. Then of course there are Broberg and Holloway who do not have current contracts; when they do, they’ll be credited to Bowman.
Extended roster
This group all played the lion’s share of the 2023-24 season in the AHL or other, lower leagues. The one exception was James Hamblin who had a run of 31 games in the NHL between early November and mid-January, then got hurt shortly after his return to the minors limiting him to just 13 AHL games including none at all in the playoffs. He played just 1 game after Feb 03 and wasn’t called up to join the Oilers’ “Black Aces”in the post-season. The organization clearly likes the player and extended him by two more years on Jul 01, but at this point he is established as a tweener and is a likelier bet to start next season in Bakersfield than in Edmonton.
The rest of the list consists of depth pros like Lane Pederson and Ben Gleason and a variety of prospects at various stages of development. Big forwards Raphael Lavoie and Noah Philp are also in the mix for 2024-25, as are defender Philip Kemp and goaltender Olivier Rodrigue to name a couple. Intriguing summer trade acquisitions Matthew Savoie and Roby Jarventie — both acquired by Jackson — will get a look in camp but have some proving to do. At this distance it’s fairly straightforward to project the entire group as starting next season outside the NHL.
Reserve list
This from the essential PuckPedia covers the 18 uncontracted players whose NHL rights belong to the Oilers. 17 of them were acquired through the NHL Draft, including 7 in the 2024 edition overseen by Jackson and his new Director of Amateur Scouting Rick Pracey. Notable among them, Sam O’Reilly who was selected with a late first round pick the Oilers acquired by trade on the draft floor.
Most are long shots, included here for completeness. We’ll look into all of these players and many others from the extended roster in our annual Cult of Hockey prospects series which begins later this week.
Bowman’s early priorities
The new GM arrived at a time when much of the offseason work was already done, so he’s got a little breathing room to identify his priorities and restrictions. Among them:
- Enter negotiations with Draisaitl on a contract extension. Big term, big dollars, big decision.
- Sign Broberg and Holloway to extensions.
- Sound out Bouchard on a potential extension. He too is set to expire at the end of next season, though in his case the team will have RFA rights The player may be in no hurry to sign given he is still making his case, and a strong one at that, to establish his value.
- Figure out a way forward on the salary cap constraints. Thanks in large part to ~$6.5 million in dead cap of one descriptions or another, the Oilers are starting in a deficit position, even before the Broberg/Holloway deals are known.
- Try to figure out the Evander Kane situation. The power forward has been dealing with a variety of injuries during his time here. Many project him as at least starting the season on Long Term Injured Reserve; were that known to be a full-season issue it would solve the capo shortfall and free up some space to add some term to Broberg and/or Holloway. If on the other hand Kane will be in position to pass the physical and start the season with the club, then an alternate plan must be established to move out some salary. This seems likely to be Bowman’s most vexing issue in the minefield ahead.
Recently, at The Cult of Hockey
LEAVINS: Jackson’s multi-layered approach to a Stanley Cup — 9 Things
STAPLES: The carrot and stick aspects of the McDavid and Draisaitl contracts
McCURDY: Two greats ascend the steps to the Edmonton Oilers Hall of Fame
STAPLES: Can Bowman, Draisaitl find the middle ground?
McCURDY: How big of a bargain was Draisaitl’s last deal?
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