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Edmonton Oilers Sign Jesse Puljujarvi

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The Edmonton Oilers have avoided arbitration with restricted free agent Jesse Puljujarvi, agreeing on a one-year, $3MM contract according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Puljujarvi was the next scheduled arbitration hearing, set for this Friday, which will no longer be necessary.

The 24-year-old winger had been issued a qualifying offer before he filed for salary arbitration and had a rather strong case after scoring 36 points in 65 games this season. Selected fourth overall in 2016, Puljujarvi has had a rocky career with the Oilers so far (including a stint spent in Finland) but is starting to show signs of being a strong two-way winger that can contribute and help drive play.

This season, he set a career-high in points, assists, shots, and average ice time, while also even earning a fourth place Selke Trophy vote. His defensive ability has developed nicely, even if his overall offensive ability is still incredibly inconsistent.

There have been many who believe a change of scenery is the best option for both the Oilers and Puljujarvi, a thought only amplified when Ken Holland said at his end-of-year media availability that he had to “sort out” the situation and talk to the coaching staff before making a decision. Reports have continued to surface in the weeks since that though there were a handful of teams interested, the Oilers would be selling him for a relatively low return.

That could still happen after this agreement, and in fact, it might help any trade talks move along. Teams rarely target players headed for arbitration as acquiring them means preparing for the hearing as well. In Puljujarvi’s case, figures would have been exchanged tomorrow and once the hearing began, no settlement is allowed.

Now, the Oilers sit over the cap with a 19-man roster, though Mike Smith and Oscar Klefbom are both expected to spend the entire season on long-term injured reserve, giving the team a bit of flexibility. Edmonton still has two key restricted free agents to go, including Kailer Yamamoto whose arbitration hearing is set for August 7. When that case is settled, they will receive a short buyout window that could be used to clear additional cap space, if they chose to use it.

Edmonton Oilers Hire Mark Stuart

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After John Buccigross of ESPN broke the story in the morning, the Edmonton Oilers officially announced the hiring of Mark Stuart as an assistant coach.

The veteran defenseman will join Jay Woodcroft’s staff after previously serving under his brother, Todd Woodcroft, at the University of Vermont in 2020-21. This season, he was an assistant with Colorado College, making this quite the jump for the former NHL regular. Stuart played in 673 regular season games during a long career, suiting up for the Boston Bruins, Atlanta Thrashers, and Winnipeg Jets during that time. His career ended after one year overseas in 2018, but he hasn’t been relaxing much in retirement.

In 2018-19 he re-joined the Jets organization to help the Manitoba Moose, and then went to school to finish his college degree. Coaching since then, he’ll now be back on an NHL bench (or at least behind it) for the upcoming season.

He joins Glen Gulutzan and Dave Manson as assistants with the Oilers, who also announced today that skating coach David Pelletier will return for 2022-23.

Brett Kulak Reflects On Free Agency, Decision To Re-Sign In Edmonton

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  • Edmonton Oilers defenseman Brett Kulak had a chance to reflect on his trip to the UFA market and his decision to re-sign in Edmonton with Mike Arcuri of EdmontonOilers.com (link). A hometown player and native of Stony Plain, AB, Kulak nonetheless chose to take the experience and see what the market brought to him, considering it a potential once-in-a-career opportunity. Ultimately, the former Calgary Flames and Montreal Canadiens defenseman chose to stay-put, signing a four-year, $11MM contract, telling Arcuri that Edmonton’s offer gave him and his wife “the balance of things I wanted in my next contract,” citing opportunity, a good team, and dollar value as the things he was searching for. Kulak’s comments serve to shed light on the free agency experience for players and show that the decision is not always solely financial or solely personal, and impacts more than just the player. Coming from Kulak, a good NHL player, but not necessarily the prized-piece like a Johnny Gaudreau, brings light to how the average NHL player looks at these decisions, and even helps consider that no two players are exactly the same and each has plenty on their plate to influence the decision that they and their family members make.

Could Warren Foegele Be A More Plausible Cost-Cutting Candidate For Oilers?

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  • With the Oilers being among the teams that are still looking to clear out some money this summer, Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal posits that the cleanest option for Edmonton might be to move winger Warren Foegele. Acquired in a trade from Carolina last summer, the 26-year-old signed a three-year, $7.5MM deal that has two seasons remaining.  Foegele had 26 points in 82 games last season but posted 127 hits (a new career-high) which could be of interest to teams looking for some grit in the bottom six.  Edmonton still has to re-sign forwards Jesse Puljujarvi, Ryan McLeod, and Kailer Yamamoto and are basically down to the LTIR space from Oscar Klefbom and Mike Smith ($6.367MM combined).  It will be difficult to sign those three with that money so finding a spot for Foegele would certainly help their cause.

Andrej Sekera Retires From NHL

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After 16 seasons, one of the best Slovak defensemen to ever lace them up is calling it a career. Andrej Sekera told a Slovak-language newspaper today that he’s stepping back from the NHL.

A 2004 third-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres, Sekera carved out a quite long, underrated NHL career with the Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Los Angeles Kings, Edmonton Oilers, and Dallas Stars, where he spent the last three years and 135 games of his career.

His peak season, interestingly enough, came during his only full season with Carolina, notching 11 goals and 44 points in 74 games while averaging a career-high 23:41 per game.

Sekera was one of the more overlooked pieces that helped the Edmonton Oilers return to relevancy with Connor McDavid at the helm. He was the team’s most important defensive player in the 2016-17 season that saw them make the playoffs for the first time in 11 years, but a torn ACL during the second round in 2017 really hurt his career. He never played more than 57 games in a season after that and never averaged higher than 18 minutes per game after consistently averaging 20 or more for a number of seasons prior.

Sekera retired third all-time in games played amongst Slovak defensemen, trailing the obvious (Zdeno Chara) and Lubomir Visnovsky.

Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto File For Salary Arbitration

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The National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA) announced that 24 players have filed for player-elected salary arbitration, the deadline for which came this afternoon. This list is not necessarily the final and complete list of players headed for arbitration, with clubs now eligible to elect salary arbitration until tomorrow, July 18th at 5:00 pm ET.

Mason Appleton (WPG)

Ethan Bear (CAR)

Jesper Bratt (NJD)

Lawson Crouse (ARI)

Morgan Geekie (SEA)

Mathieu Joseph (OTT)

Kaapo Kahkonen (SJS)

Kasperi Kapanen (PIT)

Keegan Kolesar (VGK)

Oliver Kylington (CGY)

Maxime Lajoie (CAR)

Steven Lorentz (SJS)

Isac Lundestrom (ANA)

Zack MacEwen (PHI)

Niko Mikkola (STL)

Andrew Mangiapane (CGY)

Matthew Phillips (CGY)

Jesse Puljujarvi (EDM)

Tyce Thompson (NJD)

Yakov Trenin (NSH)

Vitek Vanecek (NJD)

Jake Walman (DET)

Kailer Yamamoto (EDM)

Pavel Zacha (BOS)

Notably out of this list, Mikkola had previously filed for arbitration, but the two sides were able to settle on a one-year, $1.9MM contract that will leave the defenseman an UFA after next season.

A key distinction to add is that any player who has filed for arbitration is no longer eligible to sign an offer sheet, effectively taking the players on this list off the market. Three notable names that did not file for arbitration are Winnipeg Jets forward Pierre-Luc Dubois, Calgary Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk and Columbus Blue Jackets forward Patrik Laine. Though contract talks have been quiet on Dubois and Tkachuck, word of amicable discussions between Laine’s camp and Columbus has been made known. Once tomorrow’s club-elected salary arbitration deadline passes, teams and players will have time to prepare their cases before hearings begin, running from July 27th through August 11th.

Edmonton Oilers Sign Mattias Janmark

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The Edmonton Oilers have announced their latest free agent signing: former Vegas Golden Knight Mattias Janmark is heading north, joining the Oilers on a one-year, $1.25MM deal.

Janmark, 29, was a third-round pick of the Dallas Stars at the 2013 draft and has been a consistent third or fourth-line forward since making his NHL debut in 2015-16. Janmark made the jump to North American professional hockey after an impressive season with Frolunda of the SHL and made an immediate impact with the Stars, scoring 15 goals and 29 points in 73 games. Janmark missed all of 2016-17 with a knee injury, but that didn’t stop his immediate production, as he scored 19 goals and 34 points in his first season after the injury.

The year after that, though, Janmark’s puck luck evaporated. Janmark’s shooting percentages in his first two seasons had hovered in the low teens, and in 2018-19 it crashed to just 5.7%, leading Janmark to a disappointing six-goal, 25-point year. In 2019-20, Janmark’s shooting rebounded only slightly, and he finished with another six-goal performance on a 7% shooting percentage. Those two disappointing years sealed Janmark’s exit from Dallas, and he signed a one-year, $2.25MM deal with the Chicago Blackhawks.

In Chicago, Janmark re-discovered his goal-scoring touch, potting ten goals and 19 points in just 41 games before he was traded to the Golden Knights as part of a three-team trade that net the Blackhawks second and third-round picks. In Vegas, Janmark had only five points in 15 regular season games, but that wasn’t what earned him a contract extension. Janmark is best known in Vegas for serving as the team’s hero in Game Seven against the Minnesota Wild, a game where Janmark scored a hat trick. Janmark finished with eight points in 16 playoff games and earned a one-year $2MM extension in Vegas.

Janmark’s most recent season with the Golden Knights was an up-and-down affair. His production was decent, as nine goals and 25 points aren’t totally out of line with his career averages. But injuries and the overall decline of the Golden Knights as a whole kept Janmark from having the night-to-night impact in a winning team’s bottom-six that he’s used to having. That’s what’s likely responsible for this slight decline in pay, although Janmark does now end up in a favorable situation in Edmonton.

Janmark is joining a team that just went to the Western Conference Final and he should be able to take on a valuable bottom-six role as a second-unit penalty-killer and secondary goal-scorer. Janmark has averaged around a minute of shorthanded ice time per game for the past few seasons and that’s about what should be expected of him in Edmonton.

At a $1.25MM price tag, the Oilers have secured a reliable, experienced, prime-age bottom-sixer who can help their penalty kill. The Oilers’ offseason is far from over, as Kailer Yamamoto, Jesse Puljujarvi, and Ryan McLeod are all restricted free agents, but this is a sensible addition nonetheless.

Edmonton Oilers Sign Reid Schaefer

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Another first-rounder has signed his entry-level deal. The Edmonton Oilers have announced that their top 2022 draft pick, Reid Schaefer, has signed a three-year entry-level contract.

Shaefer, 18, was the 32nd overall pick at the 2022 entry draft. The Oilers selected him at that slot after a small trade-down with the Arizona Coyotes, a deal that allowed them to get Zack Kassian’s unwanted cap hit off their books.

Schaefer played his way into the first-round conversation thanks to a breakout season with the Seattle Thunderbirds. Schaefer’s WHL track record before this year was unimpressive, to say the least. He had played in 18 games in the WHL’s COVID-shortened 2020-21 season and scored just two assists.

This season, Schaefer’s role on the Thunderbirds grew and his production grew with it. Schaefer scored 32 goals and 58 points in 66 games and added six goals and 21 points in the Thunderbirds’ 25-game playoff run to the WHL final. Schaefer’s big six-foot-three frame is what intrigues scouts most about his game. Schaefer’s hard-nosed, physical style is becoming rarer and rarer as more and more emphasis gets placed on speed and skill, and that’s something the Oilers’ front office clearly values.

That’s not to say Schaefer isn’t skilled – you’re not going in the first round without some real offensive upside – but his game is more has more layers to it than the traditional high-scoring junior prospect. Schaefer was an important all-situations forward for the Thunderbirds, helping with significant minutes on both special teams units.

Schaefer signing this deal gives him a chance to show what he can do at Oilers training camp before likely being sent to the WHL for another season on the Thunderbirds. One thing to note is Schaefer was one of the oldest first-year prospects in the 2022 draft class, meaning he could have a shorter path to the professional ranks than his peers.

Edmonton Oilers To Sign Greg McKegg

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The Edmonton Oilers are adding some more forward depth, with a deal coming for Greg McKegg according to Chris Johnston of TSN.

If you weren’t paying attention, you might have missed the fact that McKegg has turned into an NHL regular the last few years. He played in 43 games for the New York Rangers this season, taking his career total to 233 appearances–142 of those since 2018-19.

That’s not to say he’ll be playing every day for the Oilers, though they will need some cheap options for the fourth line after bringing in a bunch of money today. McKegg can play center when needed and add a little bit of physicality–just don’t expect him to score. In his career, he has just 21 goals and 39 points.

Edmonton Oilers Update Smith Status; Sign Pickard

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The Edmonton Oilers have their starting goaltender in Jack Campbell, and now they have a third-string option as well. The Oilers are bringing in Calvin Pickard to play behind Campbell and Stuart Skinner on a two-year, two-way contract. The deal carries an average annual value of $762.5K

That leaves Mike Smith on the outside, and general manager Ken Holland updated the veteran’s status today. “I’m not expecting Smitty to play this year,” Holland told reporters including Jason Gregor of TSN, explaining why they needed someone like Pickard to come into the organization.

Smith, 40, is expected to move to long-term injured reserve as he deals with “several” chronic injuries. That will give the Oilers some additional cap flexibility, and potentially end Smith’s career after 670 regular season appearances. His overall record with Edmonton during that time was 56-27-10 with a .913 save percentage, helping the club all the way to the Western Conference Finals this year.

If it is the end, he finishes 36th all-time in games played by a goaltender, 40th all-time in wins. Not a Hall of Fame candidate, but a good goaltender for a very long time in the league.

Pickard, meanwhile, spent most of this season in the minor leagues, posting a .918 with the Grand Rapids Griffins. The 30-year-old has bounced around the league for the last decade, appearing in 116 NHL contests.

While he represents a solid minor league option, if he’s playing regularly for the Oilers this season they will be in trouble.

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