If you are power ranking the four seasons, fall should always be top of the list.
Warm in the daytime and cool at night, it’s the best looking, best smelling and, with Thanksgiving and Halloween leading the way, the best tasting of the core four seasons.
Autumn also signals the start of hockey and, for the Edmonton Oilers, the end of an absolutely wild summer.
Stan Bowman hired as new general manager. Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg lost to offer sheets. Ryan McLeod and Cody Ceci traded. Warren Foegele, Vincent Desharnais and Sam Carrick lost to free agency. Evander Kane looking at long-term injured reserve. Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson added on July 1. Ty Emberson and Josh Brown added to the blue line. Unrestricted free agents Connor Brown, Mattias Ekholm, Corey Perry and Adam Henrique deciding to stay. An eight-year contract for Leon Draisaitl and an unspoken reassurance that Connor McDavid is here for the long haul, too.
All this on the heels of advancing to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in late June.
That is a crazy amount of change considering the Oilers came two goals away from winning a championship. But, like they say, if you aren’t moving forward you’re moving backward.
So which way did Oilers management move this team?
Up front, they look much better on paper than they did last season, even if they have to go without Kane for a large chunk of the campaign. For all of their high-end talent, the Oilers still lacked consistent scoring depth last year. Skinner and Arvidsson should address that.
Skinner was good for between 25 and 35 goals on a bad Buffalo Sabres team. If his offensive stock shoots up the way Zach Hyman’s did when he came to Edmonton, he could be a huge addition. Arvidsson, meanwhile, is a tenacious puck-retriever who’s good for 20 goals a year when he’s healthy.
Draisaitl still managed to produce 41 goals and 106 points despite being saddled with blue collar wingers for much of last season, so you have to assume that giving him access to a couple of more naturally-gifted wingers should make all three of them better.
Further down the depth chart, Janmark, Henrique and Brown evolved into a line that had a legitimate impact in the playoffs last year. All three of them could have left for more money as unrestricted free agents, which would have been disastrous. That the Oilers were able to keep all of them, at affordable rates and terms, is a sneaky-good piece of management that could play a vital role in Edmonton’s season.
All in all, it mitigates the short-term impact of losing Holloway to the St. Louis offer sheet. The Oilers might feel a sting a few years from now if the eager and talented winger turns into something big, but for now they’re better at forward.
As for right winger Vasily Podkolzin, acquired from Vancouver last month for a fourth-round pick? Who knows? He was a 10th overall draft pick in 2019 and scored 14 goals as a rookie, but hasn’t been heard from since (four goals in 58 games over the last two seasons).
On defence, the Oilers got worse. There’s no way around it — losing Ceci, Desharnais and Broberg and expecting Brown, Emberson and Troy Stecher to fill the void might be wishful thinking.
Ceci is a reliable player, Desharnais is a good penalty killer who makes life miserable for opponents and Broberg is a rising talent who, with very little NHL experience under his belt, didn’t look at all out of place in the Stanley Cup Final (he finished plus eight with two goals and an assist in 10 playoff games). The Oilers could have used the heads-up, smooth-skating, puck moving defenceman this year but that door is closed. His upside is now in St. Louis for the price of $4.58 million a year.
At six-foot-five, Brown (formerly of the Arizona Coyotes) is being counted on to provide some of what Desharnais brought to the table — a steady, menacing presence who makes life difficult for opponents around Edmonton’s net.
Emberson is another wild card. They say he was the best defender on the worst team in the league, a smart player and good skater who stood strong against top six forwards for San Jose. But, with just 30 games of NHL experience, you can’t really be sure what he can do here.
While the Oilers seem deeper and better up front, you are only as strong as your weakest link and, on paper, that link is the blue line.
They could prove otherwise — good teams often bring out the best in players and with Mattias Ekholm, Evan Bouchard and Darnell Nurse eating up most of the ice time, the bottom three will face softer minutes — but you never know for sure until you see it.
E-mail: [email protected]