Offseason Checklist: Edmonton Oilers

The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t taking part in the playoffs plus those who have already been eliminated.  Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Edmonton.

After a pair of appearances in the Stanley Cup Final, expectations were justifiably high in Edmonton.  However, the season didn’t go according to plan and they wound up being ousted by Anaheim in the opening round.  GM Stan Bowman made a few moves in-season to try to shore things up, now he’ll have to make several more to try to help get the team back into contention.

Hire A Head Coach

With the Kings being set to hire Peter Laviolette as their next head coach, there are just two vacancies remaining with the Oilers being one of them.  How the opening came about was a little unusual, as word leaked that they were hoping to speak to former Vegas bench boss Bruce Cassidy while Kris Knoblauch was still employed.  It was only a few days after that report that Bowman decided to make it official that he was looking for a new head coach.

As of yet, Edmonton hasn’t received permission to speak to Cassidy yet, resulting in them continuing their search without his name in the mix.  They’ve spoken to several veteran candidates and it appears there is a bit of a surprising front-runner, with the team doing some extra due diligence on Mike Babcock.  More specifically, they’re trying to work through any potential concerns about hiring him with the NHLPA, signaling that they’re quite serious about the idea.

With Connor McDavid beginning his new two-year extension, it’s fair to say that there is a sense of urgency for the Oilers.  With that in mind, it’s not surprising that they’re looking for someone with a proven track record although Babcock’s recent history makes his consideration stand out that much more.  At this point, the risks are well-known and if they’re still willing to hire him, they’re banking on his success back with Detroit and Anaheim carrying the day to try to get Edmonton back to contention.

With the draft now less than three weeks away and offseason planning well underway, a hire needs to be in place in the near future.

Land A Goalie Upgrade

Last offseason, the thought was that they could once again get away with a Stuart Skinner–Calvin Pickard tandem.  After all, while the day-to-day was consistently inconsistent, overall, it was good enough to get them to the Stanley Cup Final in two straight years.  It was a cheap tandem and that would allow them to spend on filling other holes.  Bowman then took advantage of Utah’s desire to move Connor Ingram, adding him for future considerations to give them a third netminder with experience.

That move proved to be a shrewd one as he ultimately took over the backup role when Pickard struggled, then moved onto the starting job later in the season.  But while that trade worked, the other one didn’t.  Skinner was eventually moved with Brett Kulak and a second-round pick to get Tristan Jarry, thinking that Jarry would help stabilize things between the pipes.  Instead, Jarry was worse, much worse, which eventually pressed Ingram into the starting role.

Jarry has two years left on his contract at a $5.375MM price tag.  Between that and his performance, it’s safe to say that he’s not going to be traded.  Meanwhile, Ingram is a pending unrestricted free agent.  He can’t be brought back to be the starter as that’s a role he isn’t really suited for.  But Jarry can’t be the starter either given how poorly he performed.

As a result, just months after trading for what he thought was a goalie upgrade, Bowman is going to have to make a move to upgrade on the upgrade.  The free agent market has Sergei Bobrovsky who would be a short-term solution but he’s also coming off a rough year.  Not many starters are available either so they may have to look at a bit of a short-term gamble, hoping that a netminder playing behind their defense could rebound.  Buffalo has a surplus while Montreal will likely look to move Sam Montembeault but Bowman surely will be looking to see what other options are out there.  But after how badly things went between the pipes this season, last summer’s history can’t repeat itself here.

Keep A Rental

The Oilers made a pair of moves with Chicago to shore up their roster before the trade deadline, adding center Jason Dickinson to strengthen the bottom six and Connor Murphy to add a stabilizing defensive presence on the back end.  They’d undoubtedly like to keep both around.  However, they only have around $14.5MM in cap space per PuckPedia and several roster spots to fill, including a goalie.  While keeping both would be nice, they may be limited to just keeping one.

At this point, it’s evident that Edmonton’s preference is to have Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on the wing, allowing him to play higher up the depth chart.  However, they’ve had some challenges filling the third-line center role, often resulting in their plans for Nugent-Hopkins being scrapped.  While Dickinson is unlikely to repeat the 22-goal, 35-point effort from 2023-24, he’s a solid option to fill that spot if he stays.  He’s reliable defensively, can kill penalties, and play with a bit of an edge.  However, given the overall dearth of options available down the middle in free agency, his market may be strong enough to beat the $4.25MM he made the last two years while getting a considerably longer-term deal as well.

Murphy, meanwhile, logged big minutes after being acquired, logging over 20 minutes a night which was well above his average with the Blackhawks before the swap.  He served as an anchor on the penalty kill while stabilizing the second pairing.  A right-shot defender, he’ll certainly be in high demand if he makes it to the open market but at 33 years old, he won’t be in a position to command the type of longer-term deal that Dickinson should be able to.  On the other hand, the Oilers already have more than $32MM in commitments on the back end; re-signing Murphy would give them the most expensive defense corps in the NHL, barring other moves made around the league, of course.

Keeping both players would be great, but would make accomplishing their other objectives much more difficult.  Accordingly, re-signing one out of two might have to suffice.

Add A Top-Six Forward

Given the firepower this team possesses, this might seem a little strange.  However, they only had four forwards reach the 40-point mark in 2025-26 and they did try to fill this spot last summer when they signed Andrew Mangiapane in a move that simply didn’t work out.  Meanwhile, Jack Roslovic, who quietly put up 21 goals this season, seems likely to move on in free agency.  Needless to say, there’s a spot to be filled here.

In an ideal world, Vasily Podkolzin and Matthew Savoie continue their development while Isaac Howard makes a legitimate push for a spot as well.  If all of those things happened, they’d probably be fine.  But this is a veteran-laden team with a win-now mentality; they’re probably not going to want to leave this to chance.  While there aren’t many top-line forwards in free agency this summer, there are more second-liners available.  A chance to line up alongside one of McDavid or Leon Draisaitl should be enough of a selling point to give Bowman some options, if they’re still able to afford this after addressing their other areas.

There’s a case to make that the defense needs to be shored up as well but it’s possible Murphy re-signs which would probably suffice.  Failing that, it could also be rejigged depending on what Darnell Nurse wants to do, something that’s entirely in his hands now.  While they’re waiting to see if he’s amenable to move, they should be setting their sights on lengthening their offense to take some of the pressure off their top players up front.

Photo courtesy of Sergei Belski-Imagn Images.