Cameron Wright Signs In Finland
Cameron Wright‘s stay in the Oilers organization will be a short one. After turning an AHL contract into an NHL one at the beginning of last season, he’s on his way overseas and has signed a one-year deal with HPK in Finland’s Liiga, the club announced.
Wright, 27, had a long path to landing an NHL deal. Undrafted, he spent five years in college and won a national championship with Denver in 2022 after spending the prior four years at Bowling Green. The 6’1″ winger actually tied for the team lead on that Pioneers squad in goals with 23 in 41 games, and while he had some NHL interest, he ended up landing an AHL contract with the Avalanche’s affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.
Wright barely played for the Eagles, however. He spent most of the season down in the ECHL with the Utah Grizzlies, where he exploded for 63 points in 64 games (with 136 PIMs to boot) in his first pro season. He landed a much more consistent AHL role the following season, now in the Oilers organization with Bakersfield, and parlayed that into an NHL contract the following year.
The Ontario native was a solid depth scoring piece for the Condors in 2024-25, posting a 13-11–24 scoring line in 60 games while providing physicality to their depth contingent. Evidently, that wasn’t enough for Edmonton to keep him around. They declined to issue him a qualifying offer at the end of the season and he became an unrestricted free agent.
There may have been some AHL offers on the table, but he’ll opt for a likely richer contract overseas instead. This far down the road in his development, it’s not overly likely that he makes his way back toward contention for an NHL roster spot. He joins an HPK club whose lone NHL-experience player is Kristian Vesalainen, a first-round pick by the Jets in 2017.
Pacific Notes: Kane, Savoie, Wright, Eberle
As expected the Edmonton Oilers have announced they have placed forward Evander Kane on long-term injured reserve to start the 2024-25 NHL season. He had major surgery in mid-September on two torn hip adductor muscles, two hernias, and two torn lower abdominal muscles which will keep him off the ice for the next four months.
The move gives Edmonton some much-needed financial breathing room and will allow them to safely register Travis Dermott‘s one-year, $775K contract. Kane’s LTIR placement gives the Oilers $5.125MM in cap room after starting the year with only $53 of space.
Things will get tricky for Edmonton once Kane returns from surgery in mid-January since his contract will be added back to the active roster. The team will still accrue cap space thanks to a separate transaction today (more on that later) but will still be in a bind when Kane returns.
Other Pacific notes:
- In the same announcement, the Oilers shared they have reassigned forwards Matthew Savoie and Cameron Wright to their AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors. The two combined for $1.811MM in cap space with the latter signing a one-year, $925K contract with the team yesterday. Coupled with the team officially signing Dermott to a one-year, $775K contract they have opened up another $1.036MM in salary cap space.
- Before the team’s first game of the regular season against the St. Louis Blues this afternoon, the Seattle Kraken named their second captain in franchise history. Forward Jordan Eberle will now don the ‘C’ for Seattle and will be the first player to do so since defenseman Mark Giordano. Eberle was selected by the Kraken from the New York Islanders in the 2021 Expansion Draft and signed a two-year, $9.5MM extension with the club during the 2023-24 regular season.
Edmonton Signs Cameron Wright, Recall Matt Savoie
The Edmonton Oilers are bringing up some depth from their AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors. The team announced they have signed forward Cameron Wright to a one-year, two-way contract worth $925K and have recalled forward Matthew Savoie.
Wright has been bouncing around the AHL and ECHL over the last few years after finishing his college tenure at the University of Denver in 2021-22. His first professional season came a year later in the Colorado Avalanche organization, where Wright played 64 games for the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies and two for the AHL’s Colorado Eagles.
His first year with the Oilers organization came last season where Wright managed 48 games for the Condors. He became an effective goal scorer at the bottom of the lineup with 12 goals and 21 points in total.
It will be interesting to see how long Wright and Savoie stick around on Edmonton’s roster to begin the 2024-25 NHL season. The latter recently joined the Oilers organization in the offseason in a trade with the Buffalo Sabres and quickly became one of Edmonton’s top prospects.
This year would mark his first full year in professional hockey after small appearances with the AHL Rochester Americans and Sabres last year. The Oilers have yet to put Evander Kane on LTIR which will inevitably open up much-needed financial flexibility for the roster.