Edmonton Oilers have made a small step to address their lack of depth on left defence, claiming Travis Dermott off the waiver wire on Wednesday.
The Oil had lost the player by the same routeback in mid-December, when they tried to waive the player only to have Minnesota Wild snap him up. The Wild were dealing with an injury bug at the time, and wound up using him for 9 games at 11½ minutes per night, which is not so much “third pairing” as “clear #6”.. He produced flat nothing with boxcars of 0-0-0, +0, which is to say he survived, but barely.
Add this to the 10 games he played in blue and orange earlier this season (0-0-0, -3 in 13 minutes per game), and Dermott has added 19 NHL games to a résumé that now stands at 348 games. Not to mention another three-quarters of a season on big-league rosters, the majority of that in the press box, mind.
That may be about to change. The Oilers may have the option of sending the player directly to Bakersfield, if it turns out they were the only NHL club to submit a claim. In that instance he will have been deemed to clear the entire league, allowing Edmonton to fulfill their objective when they waived him in the first place.
- UPDATE 1pm: The Oilers have in fact re-assigned Dermott to Bakersfield.
Truth is that the organization is woefully thin in left-shot defencemen. Here in Edmonton all of Darnell Nurse, Mattias Ekholm and Brett Kulak are mainstays but all the depth defenders — Ty Emberson, Troy Stecher, John Klingberg and previous waiver claim Alex Regula (on LTIR since being claimed) — are right shots. In Bakersfield, just Cam Dineen remains from the trio of LHD who started the season, as both Ben Gleason and Noel Hoefenmayer got traded in season with every incoming D shooting right.
Stan Bowman has shown little hesitancy in using the waiver wire, having claimed no fewer than 4 players to this point. Among them, Kasperi Kapanen has had the only real impact on the big club. Regula was injured when claimed and remains so. Rapahel Lavoie was lost on waivers to Vegas, then reclaimerd by the Oilers in the hopes they would be the only team to do so. But when a lower team also put in a claim, that put paid to Bowman’s apparent plan to reacquire the player and assign him to the AHL. So the very next day Lavoie was waived yet a third time, and permanently lost to Vegas. Now another reclamation project (literally) in the form of Dermott.
The 28-year-old came to the Oilers last September on a professional tryout (PTO), already known to coach Kris Knoblauch and teammates Connor McDavid and Connor Brown during their time together with Erie Otters a decade previous. He was subsequently signed to a two-way contract at NHL minimum on the eve of the season. Dermott started the season in a rotation with Emberson and Stecher but played his way out of it by mid-November, thereafter becoming a fixture in the press box and eventually, the waiver wire.
Surely the idea now is to get him up and playing with the Condors, who could sorely use the help. He has a generous AHL component ($500,000) to his two-way contract, and can be expected to provide the solid play, experience and leadership that Gleason and Hoefenmayer did.
And in a pinch, will be the most NHL-experienced defender available for recall by the Oilers.
Recently at the Cult of Hockey
STAPLES: McDavid in a rut, Bowman in a quandary
McCURDY: Player grades from another discouraging loss at Tampa
STAPLES: Oilers to sit out big name newcomers on wing, defence vs Tampa
McCURDY: 6 troubling trends for Oilers thru 6 February games
LEAVINS: 9 Things, Feb 23 edition
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social
LEAVINS: 9 Things, Feb 23 edition
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social
Follow me on X-Twitter @BruceMcCurdy
and on Bluesky Social @brucemccurdy.bsky.social