OK, the trade deadline is in the rearview mirror for the Edmonton Oilers, who added toughness with Trent Frederic and Max Jones and defenceman Jake Walman, but the team continues to cough and sputter, looking more like a team that has to hold off Los Angeles for No. 2 spot in the Pacific than reeling in Vegas for first place.
What are you thinking today, after that 3-2 loss in Buffalo?
Here’s a sampling of questions in an Oilers mailbag.
Q:If the Oilers don’t go far in these playoffs, what has to change over the summer to make Connor believe this team is going to be stronger or more capable so that if he’s not doing well or Leon’s not doing well in games, do they have enough help? The rest of the team hasn’t kept up. Has the Oilers management already decided that this year they don’t have the team to win and they better make significant moves this summer so their captain re-signs with the team? (Peter K.)
A: Not sure where management is in the short-term picture, but after Draisaitl re-upped for eight years for an NHL high $14 million AAV, with the extension starting next season, the assumption has long been that his pal McDavid will follow suit, for at or close to 20 per cent of the salary cap ceiling.
It seems inconceivable that McDavid would abandon his sidekick, who is in for the long haul and with his former agent Jeff Jackson now running the show as CEO of hockey ops, and his friendship with him. But McDavid, who is a free-agent July 1, 2026 and already 10 years into his NHL career with no Cup, has to be grinding his teeth because this oldest team in the league has shown too much inconsistency.
Hindsight being 20-20, Jackson, operating as the defacto GM before hiring Stan Bowman July 26, was too loyal on July 1, bringing back guys who helped the Oilers get to Game 7 of the Cup Final last June.
Loyalty is admired in the real world, but in sports, sometimes it gets in the way. Jackson brought back all three free-agents on his third line — Mattias Janmark, Adam Henrique and Connor Brown after a strong playoff — and he gave Janmark, 32, excellent as a penalty-killer, with his defensive awareness, a three-year contract.
Henrique, 34, got two years. Brown, 31, another year.
That line has 18 goals all season and that, folks, is the titular third line, and Janmark and Brown haven’t been as good on a PK that is 75.2 per cent. Only one team in playoffs (Minnesota at 69.9) is worse on the penalty-kill.
The Oilers made a grave error in August, when Bowman was running the show in concert with Jackson, by not matching winger Dylan Holloway’s two year offer sheet from St. Louis at $2.29 million AAV, losing his speed and tenacity, also his age (23).
They should have found a way at that low cap hit. We get it that Holloway instantly got more playing time with the Blues where he’s got 20 goals and 47 points. but the two free-agent wingers the Oilers signed on July 1 — Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson — have 19 total, and there’s a very good chance Holloway could have played second line with Draisaitl for less than Skinner’s $3M and Arvidsson’s $4M.
Swings and misses.
Maybe defenceman Philip Broberg was too rich at $4.6 million AAV to match that Blues offer sheet (more than Evan Bouchard is making), but, they just traded for San Jose’s Jake Walman at $3.4m AAV, giving up a first-round draft pick (conditional in 2026), and he’s five and half years older than Broberg. Walman looks like a fine player, competitive, good skater, moves the puck well and he has some bite. Good acquisition by Bowman. but again, they had Broberg already. Plus, they surrendered the second-round 2025 compensation for the Broberg loss in the three-way Frederic and Jones pickup from the Bruins.
In the summer the Oilers could buy out Evander Kane ($5.125 million AAV, and they probably won’t have Jeff Skinner back, so there’s room to wheel and deal, but we’ll see where they go with this.
Q:Will the Oilers ever acquire a goalie in the 29/97 era? I’ll hang up and listen. (Notorious. F.A.F.O.)
A: I’m not as hard on Sturt Skinner as this disenchanted fan base is with the 26-year-old because he’s still only played 167 NHL regular-season games. Can the Oilers win with Stuart in net, playing night after night? I’m not so sure, not the way he’s playing. He’s nowhere near as consistently good as he was last season at this time, with the playoffs beckoning, with the team in front of him that was also much stronger defensively in March of 2024 than March of 2025.
I’m a realist. Skinner needs a 1A to push the 1, rather than the good soldier Calvin Pickard playing one out of every three games as the backup and only once starting two in a row this season, and the Oilers didn’t get him one at the trade deadline.
I believe they seriously investigated Karel Vejmelka in Utah but Utah, knowing they needed him for their playoff run and with the recent news that Connor Ingram has entered the NHL’s Player Assistance program, was in negotiations to resign him.
They did for five years at $4.5 million AAV. I don’t believe the Oilers were sold on an acquisition of Ducks’ John Gibson, maybe because he can’t stay healthy, never mind his contract at $6.4 million which would have needed a 50 per cent retention in a trade, for sure.
I didn’t like the rebound goal Skinner gave up to Tage Thompson in the first period in Buffalo. The Oilers were chasing the game after that. Yeah, I can read the stats. has given up 33 goals in 256 shots over his last 10 starts for an .871 save percentage, nowhere near good enough.
You can’t hang every single loss on him, although his critics would have you believe he’s the culprit every night. Still, bottom line: he has had just two games (against the Habs here, .929, and in St. Louis, .909) with a save percentage over .900 in those last 10 starts.
Skinner was consistently good for a very long stretch going into the playoffs, on an Oiler steam that was playing very well in front of him, and he also cleaned up some messes last year. This season? As we said, his body of work is clearly troubling with the playoffs five weeks away. They needed a goalie at the deadline to help him. They didn’t get one.
Q:Will Nurse be moved in the off-season now that Walman’s clearly the #4 defenceman on this team. Before the Seth Jones trade (to Florida) most people would have assumed Nurse is not tradeable. Maybe they could now. (PaperBoy 402).
A: C’mon now. Fourth left defenceman on this team? To these eyes, Nurse has been their best left D. Mattias Ekholm hasn’t been the same rock-solid Elkholm as he was last season, maybe in part because he’s been sick for quite a while. Bouchard’s uneven play with a new contract upcoming, also hasn’t helped with the No. 1 pairing, at all.
After a poor 2023-2024 season, Nurse has dug in, and he’s been playing with different partners (Brett Kulak, Ty Emberson, Troy Stecher, now Walman, at least for his Oiler debut). He has been their most consistent blueliner, more sound and controlled in his end, with the swiss army knife Kulak their unsung hero on D.
They’re not trading Nurse, even if Chicago, the second worst team in the league, was able to trade Jones, sending him to Cup champion Florida by eating $2.5 million of his $9.5 million AAV for the next five seasons. Jones was dying to get out of all the losing in Chicago on the rebuilding team, Nurse, 30, is three years into his eight-year deal at an AAV of $9.25 million.
He has a no-move clause for two more years, then he has a modified no-trade clause for three seasons, bringing him to age 35. Could they trade him in 2027 after the no-move ends? Maybe. Would they? Depends where the team stands. Have they won a Cup?
Q:They always play down to the bottom teams, they never change (Cait).
A: Uh, wrong. This season the Oilers have struggled against teams currently in the playoffs and they’ve beaten up on the clubs on the outside looking even after that distressing loss in Buffalo, dropping valuable points to the worst team in the Eastern Conference. If you thought the Oilers Decade of Darkness was putrid, the Sabres are missing the playoffs for the 14th straight year. The Sabres’ record ties the longest active streak for a pro team in any sport (the NFL’s woebegone New York Jets).
The Oilers are 24-9 against teams that are out of the playoffs as of today, with a losing record against only the Anaheim Ducks, if you can believe it (1-2).
Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post, and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun