Oilers Notes: Yamamoto, Goaltending, Chaulk

While young wingers Joel Farabee and Drake Batherson inked six-year deals earlier this week, don’t expect a similar deal to be coming for Oilers winger Kailer Yamamoto.  Postmedia’s Jim Matheson notes that even with that market shifting towards longer-term deals, a bridge contract is still all but a certainty for the 22-year-old who is coming off a quiet year with 21 points in 52 games after putting up just 26 in 27 contests the year before.  Matheson suggests Nashville’s Luke Kunin (two years, $2.3MM AAV) as the type of comparable deal that Yamamoto’s camp could realistically try to work off of while the Oilers may be closer to Jesse Puljujarvi’s deal (two years, $1.175MM AAV) knowing that Yamamoto has limited leverage for this deal.

More from Edmonton:

• The Oilers carried three goalies down the stretch last season after having all sorts of challenges rostering netminders early on in the campaign but Daniel Nugent-Bowman relays (subscription link) that they won’t do the same in 2021-22, at least to start the year. With Mike Smith set as the starter, that puts Mikko Koskinen and Alex Stalock battling for the second position.  Koskinen has the more recent NHL experience (Stalock didn’t play at all last year) but if their cap situation is tight coming out of training camp, having Stalock be the backup and burying Koskinen in the minors would give them an extra $340K in cap room.
• Edmonton’s AHL affiliate in Bakersfield has added to their coaching staff as the Oilers announced that Colin Chaulk will join the Condors as an assistant coach. Chaulk last worked in the AHL in 2019-20 as an assistant with AHL Belleville and also has seven seasons of ECHL coaching experience.