The Edmonton Oilers entered their 2024-25 training camp with most of their lineup locked down.
That is not altogether uncommon for a club who is just returning from Game Seven of a Stanley Cup Final.
But even now, with camp winding down, some significant question marks persist.
We will dig into those in this edition of…
9 Things
9. Anyone else nervous that we have not seen Darnell Nurse in game action yet? Even though the club was more than up front about him and said Nurse would not play in the early going? Yeah, I doubt I am alone. And to say they are counting on a bounce-back season from Nurse would be an understatement.
8. Having watched his previous training camp outings, I was reminding myself “don’t put too much weight in a veteran’s game early in camp” over the performances of Derek Ryan. But Saturday he was the Derek Ryan I have come to expect. And that pass on the Mattias Ekholm goal was terrific.
7. It looked to me that Calvin Pickard may have caught the post with his head in that First Period collision Saturday night and did not return. Precautionary only one hopes. The veteran Pickard was a revelation for this club last season. This year, the gap in goal for this franchise from #1 to #3 is bigger still. Pickard was still being evaluated last night. Cross your fingers.
6. It is not particularly unusual for a young player to show up and impress early in an NHL training camp. But it is not common for those guys to continue to get better as the competition gets tougher. This is when they usually start to fade. But Sam O’Reilly has not. The Oilers are a different team in a different place than 5 years ago. They do not need rookies like O’Reilly to come in and play in Edmonton this season and I still do not think he will. But he sure has great instincts out there.
5. One guy who would still be viewed as a rookie if he were to play for the Oilers this season would be Raphael Lavoie. The big winger sniped an awfully nice goal against Seattle Saturday. Seeing Lavoie with a “real” NHL center for 40+ games would be intriguing. That kind of release is tantalizing and he used his size well. But the top three lines are set. And I am not sure Lavoie’s toolkit is suited for Fourth line duty. His time penalty killing in the AHL was short-lived. Unfortunately for Lavoie, on many nights that could result in just five, maybe six minutes of TOI.
4. It is a little unusual that we have seen the McDavid-Nugent-Hopkins-Hyman line twice in training camp game action already. Yet, we have not seen the brand, new trio of Len Draisaitl, Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner. The afore mentioned #1 line has a substantial history of lining up alongside one another. This second line is brand, spanking new. What if they only click on paper? Yes, they have practiced together but that is not the same as game minutes. Still, there are three exhibition games remaining. So, there remains time for them to get a feel for one another in actual game action.
3. The exhibition season injuries to Drew Doughty and Patrik Laine have fed the arguments of those who complain the NHL training camp schedule is too long. But connecting those two things seems a bit convenient to me. Those players could just as easily have been hurt in a four-game preseason. The exact same injury could occur in the first game of the regular campaign. When the injuries occurred is just bad luck. As I have argued before, the extra games in September give bubble players precious extra opportunity to make it to October. And it also gives teams extra gates which as someone pro-business I see the value in. Besides, clubs control how much their stars play.
2. I saw some separation between Noah Philp and the other forwards vying for that 12-13-14 forward position before Saturday night. And I felt that gap widened against Seattle. Philp scored a terrific goal on a fine headman pass from Mattias Ekholm. He was 9-2 on faceoffs. And he looked like a capable penalty killer against a Kraken squad with about 10 NHL regulars. Make no doubt about it, Philp needs to PK to make this squad. In that respect, he and Raphael Lavoie are in similar circumstances. But what a story Philp is shaping up to be, after missing an entire year of hockey. Head Coach Kris Knoblauch replied postgame to a question from SportsNet’s Mark Spector about whether Philp was exceeding expectations thus far, especially within that context, with the statement “Yeah, that would be a fair assessment.”
1.As fun as watching where the Noah Philp story goes, I contend the most consequential roster battle in Edmonton Oilers training camp is for the 2RD slot. It is easier to protect a player on forward than defence. And that 2RD is a spot on the blueline is an almost impossible one to shelter someone in. And just to be clear, this is not about the Edmonton Oilers. Any club in a league this good needs those players to eat minutes against tougher competition. Reading the tea leaves, the Oilers have Ty Emberson name written down on that part of their lineup card…certainly in pencil if not in pen. Can the 24-year-old step in and manage the same TOI against the same level of players that Cody Ceci did? Ceci became a bit of a whipping boy in Edmonton. But in my books, Ceci was underrated in this town. Replacing him will not be so easy. And remember: Emberson only has a 30-game sample of handling that level of NHL competition for 18+ minutes per night.
A case in point: Brett Kulak. A fine NHL player who has been very good for Oilers since his arrival on his hometown team’s roster. And he has been particularly strong in the postseason here. I am a big fan of his. And Kulak is a veteran of nearly five hundred games in this league. Yet, if you ask Kulak to play in the second pairing for longer than some spot duty, it shows. He is not quite the same player. Kulak is what he is…a “5”. And a good one at that. And this is a dependable, legitimate NHL-er that we are talking about.
I mention Brett Kulak because this is exactly why Emberson is such a question mark. What if he, too, turns out to be a “5? If Emberson comes in and successfully fills the Ceci role, six years his predecessor’s junior and almost $2.3m per year cheaper? That would be a win all day long and twice on Sundays.
But i he does not? Then it is back to the drawing board in mid-season.
And that would be far less than ideal.
Now on Threads @kleavins. Also, find me on Twitter @KurtLeavins, Instagram at LeavinsOnHockey, and Mastodon at [email protected]. This article is not AI generated.
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