This in from NHL draft insiders, a consensus opinion that the Edmonton Oilers have one of the weakest group of prospect players in the entire NHL.
The latest rating comes today from Corey Pronman of The Athletic, who has the Oilers 30th out of 32 teams: “The Edmonton Oilers looked penciled into the 32nd spot on this ranking, but then they went out and made aggressive moves to trade up for Sam O’Reilly and deal for Matt Savoie. Their system is still quite light, but it at least has some substance and players I could see helping Edmonton one day.”
And here’s Steven Ellis of The Daily Faceoff in late July: “I’m not going to sugarcoat it: the Edmonton Oilers have one of the worst prospect pools in the league. And that’s not a surprise to anyone who follows this organization closely. They’re built to win now, and they’re willing to move on from the future to make it work.”
And Aaron Itovitch of Dobber Hockey last April before the 2024 NHL draft: “The Edmonton Oilers prospect pool is… far from incredible.”
And from The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler last February: “The Edmonton Oilers’ pool is beginning to bear the brunt of the team’s push to contend. They’ve made just one draft’s worth of picks in the last two drafts and of the seven selections they did make, only two were in the draft’s first four rounds, the least of any team in the league during that span. One of those two picks, Reid Schaefer, has already been traded as well. Add in the prospects they do have not taking the kind of steps you would have hoped for and it’s one of the weaker groups in the league.”
When we dig a bit deeper, Pronman has Matthew Savoie ranked as Edmonton’s top prospect: “a great skater with a high skill level. He buzzes around the ice due to his speed and compete, attacking loose pucks and taking them to the net consistently despite his smaller frame. He is a very skilled playmaker who makes a ton of difficult plays at very fast speeds. The concern on Savoie is his size, and there is a minor question of whether he’s actually dynamic offensively for that frame at higher levels… I see a potential middle-six wing still, but his stock is down in the league since being picked in the top 10.”
Ellis sees the biggest strength of the pool being size: “If there’s anything this system has, it’s size. Savoie isn’t included, but Raphael Lavoie, Maxim Berezkin and (Robby) Järventie give the team some beef potential in the bottom six, while Max Wanner could be a smaller replacement for Vincent Desharnais one day.”
The biggest weakness is a lack of impact players, Ellis says. “The only player that I feel confident will be an impact, everyday player for the Oilers is Savoie.”
My take
1. For Edmonton to succeed in the NHL in years to come, the team is going to need to get lucky and have some of its picks trend up fast, just as we saw with Evan Bouchard and Stuart Skinner in recent years, then both Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg in the playoffs. It was an organizational fiasco for the Oilers to lose Holloway and Broberg, but it’s worth noting the solid run Edmonton hitting on some big picks in the McDavid era did provide a boost to the team. Jesse Puljujarvi and Kailer Yamamoto did not pan out, but some key other top picks did.
2. When Bouchard was taken 10th overall in 2018, he was just a 50/50 bet to be a Top 4 d-man on the Oilers, the traditional odds for players taken at that spot in the draft. For example, players taken before him in that same draft, such as Adam Boqvist, Barrett Hayton, Filip Zadina and Vitaly Kravstov, have not become top NHLers and the jury is still out on Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
3. Ken Holland traded away numerous players in pursuit of playoff success during this McDavid/Draisaitl era of the team. Some of those trades worked out, others did not, but all of them depleted Edmonton’s odds just now of having a deep prospect pool.
4. It could be said that the drive to win now also had an impact on the ultimate fate of Broberg and Holloway. If the push to win now had not been so great, Edmonton might not have traded for Brett Kulak, which would have given Broberg more opportunity to make the Edmonton roster earlier on. Numerous forwards were also traded for or signed, blocking Holloway’s path to some extent.
5. It’s evident that Holland’s draft king Tyler Wright didn’t lead the NHL when it came to drafting but it’s still early in assessing his overall body of work. For example his 2021 draft looks like a bust, with top picks Xavier Bourgault and Luca Munzenberger not moving the needle, but there’s a chance that later picks like Max Wanner and Shane LaChance could turn out to be useful NHLers, maybe even very useful.