Headlines

Go To MLB Trade Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Oilers Rumors

Stars Hire Glen Gulutzan As Head Coach

at CDT | by 9 Comments

July 1: Dallas has announced Gulutzan’s appointment.

June 29: The Stars have offered their head coaching vacancy to Oilers assistant Glen Gulutzan, TSN’s Darren Dreger reports. They’ve yet to agree on a contract but are expected to announce him as their new bench boss in the near future.

The hiring will kick off Gulutzan’s second stint in the Stars organization. They’re the team that gave him his first NHL head coaching gig back in 2011, promoting him after he served as the head coach of AHL Texas for two seasons. His two-year run with Dallas was forgettable – a 64-57-9 record (.527) and no playoff appearances led to his dismissal after two seasons. He then joined the Canucks’ bench as an assistant for three years before resurfacing as head coach of the Flames, where he posted a 82-68-14 record (.543) before again being let go after two years. Calgary made the playoffs under Gulutzan in 2017 but was swept by the Ducks in the first round.

Gulutzan, 53, returns to Dallas hoping for better results this time around. He’ll have a much better roster to help him out. While he bounced from team to team for much of the 2010s, the now-53-year-old caught on as an assistant coach in Edmonton after being fired by the Flames and has remained there until today. He’s helped the team to back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances on Kris Knoblauch’s staff, beating the Stars in the Western Conference Final on both occasions.

The former ECHL Coach of the Year with the Las Vegas Wranglers will take over for Peter DeBoer, who was a surprise firing after Dallas was bounced in this year’s WCF. Reports indicated the relationship between DeBoer and starting goaltender Jake Oettinger had rapidly deteriorated after DeBoer pulled him from their Game 5 season-ending loss early.

His new staff in Dallas remains to be seen. They already lost assistants Steve Spott to the Bruins and Misha Donskov to a role with Hockey Canada. It’s unclear if the lone remaining assistant, Alain Nasreddine, will return under Gulutzan.

Image courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports.

Boston Bruins Acquire Viktor Arvidsson

at CDT | by 2 Comments

10:51 a.m.: The Oilers have announced the trade.

10:15 a.m.: The Bruins are set to add some extra depth on the wing.  Irfaan Gafaar reports (Twitter link) that Boston will be acquiring Viktor Arvidsson from Edmonton; David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period adds (Twitter link) that the veteran has waived his no-trade clause to facilitate the move.  TSN’s Ryan Rishaug relays (Twitter link) that Edmonton will receive a 2027 fifth-round pick in return.

The 32-year-old was brought in last summer by team president Jeff Jackson who was serving as interim GM at the time in a move to try to shore up their secondary scoring.  Given Arvidsson’s track record, the move made some sense on paper although it helped put the Oilers in the cap bind that ultimately cost them Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg to offer sheets from St. Louis soon after.

While Arvidsson was productive in limited action after returning from injury in 2023-24 with 15 points in 18 games, he wasn’t able to produce at that same level with Edmonton.  He notched 15 goals and 12 assists in 67 regular season games with Edmonton while adding two goals and five helpers in 15 playoff contests while also spending time as a healthy scratch.

With Arvidsson having one year left on his contract with a $4MM cap charge, it was widely expected that the Oilers would be looking to move him to open up some much-needed cap flexibility on their end.  They’ve done just that and the Bruins are taking on the full contract without any salary retention.

Given the low-cost return, this is an interesting move for Boston.  GM Don Sweeney hasn’t hidden his expectation of getting the Bruins back to the playoffs but with a UFA market that’s thinning quite quickly, taking a flyer on a one-year add over a multi-year addition works from a flexibility standpoint.

While Arvidsson is coming off a down year, he has five seasons of at least 20 goals under his belt.  With Boston being a team that was 27th in goals scored last season, adding someone with a decent track record of production certainly makes sense.  And if the Bruins aren’t able to get back into the playoff mix, he’d make sense as a late-season trade candidate for a team looking to add some winger depth, putting Boston in a position to get back what they gave up to get him (or perhaps even more, depending on the state of the market).

From a cap perspective, Edmonton went from having barely $550K in cap space before the swap, per PuckPedia, to $4.55MM at their disposal.  That will give GM Stan Bowman some flexibility to work with on the open market as he looks to add an upgrade or two.  Meanwhile, Boston came into the day with around $12.7MM in room, per PuckPedia, with that amount being cut to $8.7MM with this swap.  Sweeney has a few roster spots that still need to be filled with that money but that’s still ample flexibility to try to do so.

Oilers Sign Evan Bouchard To Four-Year Extension

at CDT | by 21 Comments

6:33 p.m.: The Oilers have announced Bouchard’s new extension.

3:32 p.m.: As first reported by Cam Robinson of EliteProspects and later confirmed by TSN’s Chris Johnston, the Edmonton Oilers are putting the finishing touches on an extension for pending restricted free agent defenseman Evan Bouchard. Once completed, the deal is reportedly a four-year, $42MM extension, with a $10.5MM AAV.

The deal will eat up nearly all of Edmonton’s remaining cap space. Still, it was their most important piece of business to complete this summer, and they’ll now have clarity on their salary cap situation heading into the start of free agency.

According to Frank Seravalli, there were conversations regarding an eight-year agreement, but the price was too high for the Oilers to stomach for the time being. It makes sense given that Edmonton was already fairly tight to the upper limit of the salary cap, and this deal will make Bouchard the fourth-highest defenseman in the league (in terms of AAV) behind Erik Karlsson, Drew Doughty, and Rasmus Dahlin.

Aside from the generational talents playing in front of him, Bouchard has been a focal point of the Oilers reaching back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, largely due to his offensive capabilities. From 2021 to 2023, Bouchard was a quality top-four blue liner for Edmonton, scoring 20 goals and 83 points in 163 games with a +16 rating while averaging 19:09 of ice time per night. He was even better in the postseason, scoring seven goals and 26 points in 28 games while averaging over 20 minutes a game.

His output over the last two years has completely dwarfed those numbers. Since the start of the 2023-24 campaign, Bouchard has scored an exceptional 32 goals and 149 points in 163 regular-season contests, with 61 of those points coming on Edmonton’s powerplay. Furthermore, in the postseason, he continues to improve, scoring 13 goals and 55 points in 47 games with a +20 rating.

Unfortunately, there are warranted concerns over Bouchard’s play in the defensive zone. Throughout his entire career with the Oilers, Bouchard has received extremely favorable deployment, starting 58.6% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Assuming he’s playing with Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl the majority of the time, the expectation is that Edmonton can control the play enough where they won’t have to rely on Bouchard to be in a shutdown role.

For the most part, he’s never needed to play in that role, but his defensive metrics continue to suffer. This past season, his on-ice save percentage at even strength fell to a career-low of 88.8%, marking a continual decline since the 2021-22 season.

Still, Bouchard has consistently maintained a positive impact on the game, as he has never experienced a season where the Oilers have failed to outscore their opponents at even strength while he is on the ice. This trend continues despite his defensive weaknesses.

At any rate, it’s important to note that Bouchard has averaged more than 23 minutes of ice time over the past two years for the reigning Western Conference champions. Regardless of his shortcomings in the defensive zone, he’s been the top defenseman on a Stanley Cup-caliber team for some time.

Now, with a brand new four-year contract in place, Edmonton will have additional clarity as extension negotiations begin with McDavid in a few weeks. They’ll likely want to keep McDavid on a longer-term deal than they’ve got with Bouchard, but they know the available capital they’ll have in a few years. Unfortunately for Edmonton and potentially McDavid, Bouchard will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2028-29 NHL season.

Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.

Oilers Re-Sign Kasperi Kapanen, Noah Philp

at CDT | by 2 Comments

10:46 a.m.: Edmonton has confirmed Kapanen’s new deal as reported.

8:46 a.m.: The Oilers are expected to re-sign pending UFA winger Kasperi Kapanen, PuckPedia reports Monday. It’s a one-year contract worth $1.3MM, PuckPedia adds. The club also announced a two-way extension for center Noah Philp that carries a $775,000 cap hit. His AHL salary is $250,000 with a $300,000 guarantee, per PuckPedia.

Kapanen, 29 in July, gets a small pay bump after signing a one-year, $1MM contract with the Blues in free agency last summer. That commitment didn’t result in the speedy but inconsistent winger landing a regular role in St. Louis’ lineup, though. He was a frequent healthy scratch to begin the season, scoring one goal with a minus-six rating in 10 games before landing on waivers in mid-November.

Considering Kapanen’s offensive ceiling – he has five 30-point seasons under his belt – it’s still fair to characterize his tenure in Edmonton as disappointing. He achieved more consistent deployment, appearing in 57 games, but only managed five goals and eight assists for 13 points, with a -16 rating, in 12:01 of ice time per game.

It was during the playoffs that he made a more significant impact. He wasn’t in the lineup to begin the postseason and didn’t enter the lineup until Game 4 of the second round against the Golden Knights, but once he played, he remained in the lineup for 12 of 13 games. He scored three goals and three assists for six points, including the overtime winner to clinch their series in Game 5 against Vegas, and averaged 13:28 per game.

Getting depth scoring options on cheap contracts is crucial for an Oilers team that faces a cap crunch with star RFA Evan Bouchard still in need of a new contract. They’re likely losing veterans Connor Brown, Corey Perry, and Jeff Skinner to free agency with no deals yet in place and could be set to part ways with Viktor Arvidsson in a cap-dump trade as well. While Kapanen’s most recent regular-season showing wasn’t the most impressive, there’s still a 15-goal, 30-point ceiling there that makes him an attractive re-signee at that price point.

Philp, 27 in August, was an undrafted free agent signing by Edmonton out of the University of Alberta in 2022. After going unsigned for 2023-24 and taking a leave of absence from the game for personal reasons, he returned to the Oilers organization on a two-way deal for last season. He earned his NHL debut in the process, recording two assists and a plus-one rating in 15 games over multiple call-ups in the latter half of the season. He averaged 9:05 per game and won 40 of 102 faceoffs (39.2%).

The 6’3″, 198-lb forward will get a chance to build on those numbers next season, but is best suited as a middle-six AHL option with occasional call-up potential. He put together a 19-16–35 scoring line with a +11 rating in 55 games for AHL Bakersfield this past season.

Free Agent Focus: Edmonton Oilers

at CDT | by 3 Comments

Free agency is less than 48 hours away now, and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July, while many teams also have key restricted free agents to re-sign. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Oilers.

Key Restricted Free Agents

D Evan Bouchard – The Oilers only have one player who qualifies for this section but Bouchard is certainly a significant one.  No, the 25-year-old didn’t match his output from 2023-24 although that was going to be hard to do after he put up 82 points in 81 games that year.  But even with a drop-off in production, he still finished fifth among all NHL blueliners with 67 points (14 goals, 53 assists) in 82 games.  In the playoffs, he had 23 points in 22 contests, down from 32 in 25 the year before but still extremely impressive.  While Bouchard isn’t known as being an elite defender, he has made strides at that end and has now shown himself to be one of the premier point producers from the back end.  Arbitration-eligible this summer, it’s quite possible that a long-term contract for him approaches the $10MM mark.

Other RFAs: F Jacob Perreault, F Noah Philp, G Olivier Rodrigue, F Cameron Wright

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

F Connor Brown – After a rocky first year in Edmonton, Brown took a low-cost one-year deal to stay with them last summer and fared much better, putting up 30 points during the regular season plus nine more in 20 playoff outings.  As always, he was a capable penalty killer as well.  While his days of being viewed as a secondary scorer may be done now, Brown has shown that he can still be an effective bottom-six piece so a multi-year offer at more than double the $1MM AAV he made this season should be doable.

F Kasperi Kapanen – A midseason waiver claim, Kapanen was okay in a limited role but still managed just 14 points in 67 games on the season.  He was better in the playoffs with six points in 12 games but found himself out of the lineup somewhat regularly as well.  A veteran of more than 500 NHL games now, the 28-year-old should be able to secure a deal at some point this summer but it could wind up being a little later in free agency at a price tag close to the minimum salary.

D John Klingberg – The 32-year-old is one of the bigger wild cards on the open market this summer.  He signed a deal midseason after recovering from hip surgery but didn’t play a lot after missing time due to illness and a late-season stint on LTIR.  But in the playoffs, Klingberg was in the lineup for all but three games and held his own in more than 19 minutes a night of playing time.  He’s not a top offensive threat as he was in his prime with Dallas but he’s capable of still helping out a bit on that end while his playoff performance will undoubtedly bolster his market heading into free agency, especially as a coveted right-shot player.  A big-money contract isn’t happening but he might be able to beat the $1.755MM he received when he was a free agent a few months ago.

F Corey Perry – Perry very quietly tallied 19 goals this season and is averaging 15.5 per year over the last four seasons while doing so playing almost exclusively in the bottom six.  He then went and added 10 more in 22 playoff contests.  Yes, he’s 40 but he has shown an ability to adapt and still contribute which will give him a strong market.  If he wants to continue to try to chase another Stanley Cup, he’ll probably have to keep settling for something in the $1MM range plus some bonuses.  But if he’s open to expanding his options past that, doubling that amount should be possible.

F Jeff Skinner – After being bought out by Buffalo, Skinner took a one-year, $3MM deal to give Edmonton some more proven secondary scoring while ideally bolstering his market for 2025.  That didn’t quite happen.  He managed just 16 goals and 13 assists and found himself a scratch at times during the regular season and quite frequently during the playoffs.  His track record is still good enough that there will be a market for his services this summer but it might wind up being another one-year deal at a bit of a dip from this season.

Other UFAs: D Ronald Attard, F Drake Caggiula (signed in Switzerland), D Connor Carrick (signed in Switzerland), G Collin Delia, D Travis Dermott, D Philip Kemp, F Lane Pederson, F Derek Ryan

Projected Cap Space

Following a busy week that included Evander Kane being traded to Vancouver and re-signing Trent Frederic to a surprising eight-year contract, the Oilers find themselves with a little over $12MM in cap space.  The bulk of that will be needed to get Bouchard under contract while they’ll want to shore up their depth as well.  That’s doable enough but if GM Stan Bowman wants to make a bigger splash, he’ll have to find a way to free up some cap space first.

Photos courtesy of Charles LeClaire (Bouchard) and Sam Navarro (Klingberg)-Imagn Images.  Contract info courtesy of PuckPedia.

Connor Brown Will Reportedly Test Free Agent Market

at CDT | by 7 Comments

As the Edmonton Oilers continue to create the necessary cap space to retain defenseman Evan Bouchard on a long-term deal this summer, more cap casualties will be had. According to TSN’s Ryan Rishaug, one of those casualties will be winger Connor Brown, who’s expected to find a new home on the free agent market.

Brown joined the Oilers ahead of the 2023-24 season, reuniting with his linemate from the OHL’s Erie Otters, Connor McDavid. After being snakebitten for much of his first year, Brown will likely conclude his Oilers tenure with 17 goals and 42 points in 153 games, averaging 13:27 of ice time per game.

Although he wasn’t one of their top secondary scorers, Brown became a quality tertiary option for Edmonton, especially in the playoffs. Throughout the Oilers’ back-to-back run to the Stanley Cup Final, Brown chipped in with seven goals and 15 points in 39 games with a +5 rating, averaging 13:51 of ice time.

Interested teams will be hopeful that Brown’s yips and injury issues are behind him, and he can return to being a multi-digit goal-scorer in consecutive years. In his defense, it wasn’t all that long ago that Brown found a comfortable home in the Ottawa Senators’ top-six, scoring 47 goals and 117 points in 191 games over three years.

Unfortunately, even though he’ll command a comfortable deal on the open market, Brown shouldn’t expect to be paid like a typical 20-goal scorer this summer. He does have that upside, but many teams will likely view him as a bottom-six scorer rather than a middle-six option.

Oilers Sign Trent Frederic To Eight-Year Extension

at CDT | by 28 Comments

11:00 a.m.: Frederic’s eight-year deal is official and is worth $30.8MM, as reported, the team confirmed.

9:05 a.m.: As expected, the Oilers are set to finalize an eight-year extension for forward Trent Frederic on Friday, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. The total value will be in the $30MM range for an AAV and cap hit of just under $4MM. TSN’s Darren Dreger narrows it down to a $3.85MM AAV for a total value of $30.8MM.

It’s a big payday for a player whom Edmonton hasn’t had a lot of eyes on since they acquired him from the Bruins before the trade deadline. He was dealing with an ankle injury at the time of the deal, only to re-injure it in his first game as an Oiler on April 5. He was back two weeks later for the playoffs, where the gritty and versatile 6’3″ forward was limited to four points in 22 games while averaging 11:24 per game.

That makes such a long-term and well-compensated commitment for someone who played as limited a role as Frederic did in the postseason quite shocking. Edmonton is clearly signing this deal not based on the role he played but the role they anticipate him playing moving forward, though. They’ve already lost a top-nine winger this offseason by trading Evander Kane to the Canucks and could still be poised to lose another in an additional cap-clearing trade. They could also lose all of Connor Brown, Kasperi Kapanen, Corey Perry, and Jeff Skinner to the open market next week, gutting their wing depth.

As such, Frederic is slated for a significant increase in deployment next season, potentially as high as top-six duties on a line with Leon Draisaitl or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins down the middle, depending on which one more frequently flexes up to play on Connor McDavid’s wing. In doing so, the Oilers hope he’ll not only rediscover but exceed the offensive form he found during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons with Boston.

The 2016 first-rounder’s development was a slow burn, but he finally arrived as a legitimate top-nine piece in those years, totaling 71 points and a +37 rating in 161 games despite only averaging 12:51 per game. He posted a career-high 18 goals, 40 points, and 204 hits in all 82 games with Boston last year before experiencing significant offensive regression in 2024-25. Before the deal to Edmonton, Frederic managed an 8-7–15 scoring line with a -14 rating in 57 games for the B’s.

While that explains the cap hit, it will remain interesting to hear the organization’s rationale for doling out an eight-year contract for a player already in their peak years at age 27 with a relatively limited track record of middle-six production. Frederic will now be under contract with Edmonton through the 2032-33 season, his age-34 campaign.

The Oilers will be down to $12.35MM in cap space for next season after Frederic’s deal is registered. The overwhelming majority of that will be taken up by a new deal for RFA defenseman Evan Bouchard that’s expected to cost at least $10MM. That would leave the Oilers with around $2-3MM in space to fill two roster spots, enough to round out the roster but not to make any high-profile additions.

Pacific Notes: Woodcroft, Klingberg, Perry

at CDT | by 2 Comments

Although he failed to find a new role as a head coach in this summer’s coaching carousel, Jay Woodcroft will return to the NHL next season. According to Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff, the Anaheim Ducks are expected to hire Woodcroft as an assistant coach to serve on Joel Quenneville’s staff.

It’ll be a few days before the Ducks formalize Woodcroft’s hire. His previous contract with the Edmonton Oilers runs through July 1st, so an announcement should be coming then. Woodcroft hasn’t coached in the NHL since the 2023-24 season, when he was fired as the Oilers’ head coach on November 12th.

As valuable as the Ducks likely perceive Woodcroft’s previous head coaching experience, they likely targeted him to help improve the team’s offense. The Toronto, Ontario native coached Edmonton to a 79-41-13 record in 133 games (64.3% win percentage), while the team finished eighth in GF/G at the end of the 2021-22 season, and first in the league during the 2022-23 season.

Other notes from the Pacific Division:

  • After a largely successful return to the NHL this past season with the Oilers, it doesn’t appear that defenseman John Klingberg will return to the team this summer. Speaking on the Chris Johnston Show, host Chris Johnston reported that Klingberg is likely to become an unrestricted free agent. That doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t return to Edmonton, but he may find more lucrative offers elsewhere. Although injuries limited his return during the regular season, Klingberg finished the postseason on a high note, scoring one goal and four points in 19 games with a +3 rating, averaging 19:08 of ice time per game.
  • Unlike Klingberg, the same doesn’t appear to be true regarding veteran Corey Perry. In today’s episode of Sportsnet’s Around the NHL with Elliotte Friedman, a segment on Sportsnet 590, Friedman shares that Perry and the Oilers are working towards a new deal. Assuming a relatively cheap deal for Perry, there’s little to lose for Edmonton. The 40-year-old veteran is coming off his 20th NHL season, scoring 19 goals and 30 points in 81 regular-season contests, with another 10 goals and 14 points in 22 postseason games.

AHL Notes: Pitlick, Gibson, Utica

at CDT | by 1 Comment

The Oilers’ AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, announced Wednesday they’ve signed forwards Rem Pitlick and Rhett Pitlick to one-year and two-year contracts, respectively. Both are still free agents in the NHL’s eyes, but will have a secure playing role in the pros in Edmonton’s system next season.

Rem, 28, is the older of the two brothers and has the NHL experience to show for it. He’s produced quite well in limited minutes when given the chance but has never found a stable home, suiting up for the Predators, Canadiens, Wild, and Blackhawks in parts of five seasons from 2018-19 to 2023-24. He’s managed a 21-33–54 scoring line in 132 career games, but despite that solid production, he didn’t land an NHL contract for 2024-25. He didn’t sign anywhere until February, when he inked an AHL contract with the Sharks’ affiliate. He finished the year with two goals and 13 points in 18 games, a diminished output from the point-per-game rate he’s hovered around in the minors over the past few years.

He’s joined by his younger brother, Rhett. The 24-year-old was a fifth-round pick by the Canadiens in 2019, but they relinquished his signing rights last offseason. Instead of turning pro following three years at the University of Minnesota, he transferred to Minnesota State for his senior season. He led the Mavericks with 27 assists, 40 points, and a +32 rating in 39 games en route to a CCHA regular-season and tournament championship. He was also named to the conference’s First All-Star Team and was dubbed CCHA Forward of the Year. He finished the season on a tryout with Bakersfield, notching six assists in six games with a plus-eight rating. Both are strong candidates to get NHL contracts from the Oilers at some point next season if they perform well and move up their list of potential call-ups.

Other notable news out of the AHL:

  • It’s unclear if the Capitals plan on issuing a qualifying offer to pending RFA goalie Mitchell Gibson, but the depth netminder will be staying in the organization next season regardless. He’s agreed to a one-year contract with the Hershey Bears, per a club announcement. Gibson, 26, was a fourth-round pick by the Caps in 2018 and turned pro in 2023 following four seasons at Harvard. He’s spent the vast majority of his pro career down a level with ECHL South Carolina but has made three appearances for the Bears in the past two years, recording a 1.95 GAA and .920 SV% in the process. He also did quite well in limited ECHL action this past season with a .933 SV% and 1.75 GAA in 14 games for the Stingrays. That may be enough to land him a full-time AHL job as a backup with Hershey in 2025-26 without taking up a contract slot on Washington’s books, particularly if the club doesn’t plan on re-signing UFA Hunter Shepard.
  • The Devils announced that the coaching staff for their affiliate, the Utica Comets, is set in stone for next season. Ryan Parent will stay on as head coach after taking over for Kevin Dineen on an interim basis early last year. They had a 31-33-6-2 record after the coaching change following a 0-8-1 start under Dineen. The club also promoted player development coach Mark Voakes to an assistant role under Parent and hired former NHL defenseman Matt Carkner as his other assistant. Utica’s goaltending coach, Brian Eklund, remains in his post.

Offseason Checklist: Edmonton Oilers

at CDT | by 12 Comments

The offseason has arrived with the draft and free agency fast approaching.  Accordingly, it’s time to look at what each team needs to accomplish this summer.  Next up is a look at Edmonton.

Like usual, the Oilers were one of the league’s streakier teams in the regular season. They had a couple of ruts, and although they weren’t as offensively dominant as they were in years past, they still managed third place in the Pacific Division with a 101-point season. That didn’t mean much as the Oilers dominated their way to the Stanley Cup Final, going 12-4 in the first three rounds before losing the championship series to the Panthers for the second season in a row. General manager Stan Bowman now has to navigate another offseason of limited spending flexibility in Edmonton while having some must-needed improvements to make.

Lock Up Bouchard

The Oilers haven’t had many impact players arrive through the draft since Connor McDavid ended their string of high-end picks (for the most part) in 2015. They have hit on one of them, though, selecting defenseman Evan Bouchard 10th overall back in 2018.

Bouchard became a full-time NHL player in 2021-22 and had a good rookie season with 12 goals and 43 points, averaging nearly 20 minutes per game. He took a small step back offensively in his sophomore campaign, putting up 40 points in 82 games, but found a new gear in the postseason as he posted 17 points in just 12 games to lead the 2023 postseason in scoring among defensemen despite Edmonton being eliminated in the second round. That was a sign of things to come, but the cap-strapped Oilers opted to bridge him upon expiry of his entry-level contract that summer, signing him to a two-year, $7.8MM deal instead of freeing up space to commit to Bouchard long-term.

That’s a decision that may come back to haunt them. Now an RFA again, Bouchard has finished top 11 in Norris Trophy voting each of the last two seasons and, while he has some visible defensive faults, plays an elite possession game and has established himself as one of the league’s top offensive rearguards. He’s scored 149 points in his last 163 games, averaged a career-high 23:28 per game in 2024-25, and he’s one of the most productive playoff defensemen in league history. Among D-men with at least 50 postseason games, his 1.08 points per game are second only to Bobby Orr’s 1.24.

There’s no other option here besides a max-term extension for Bouchard, and they need to do it quickly to avoid the threat of a short-term offer sheet with a high AAV that would be too prohibitive to match. According to AFP Analytics, that deal is projected to cost the Oilers in the high $10MM range per season. They did themselves a favor today by opening up $5.125MM in cap space by trading Evander Kane to the Canucks with no salary retention. Still, they likely need to make another cap-clearing move, too – potentially underperforming winger Viktor Arvidsson and his $4MM cap hit – to be able to sign Bouchard and make some other roster alterations comfortably.

Work On McDavid Extension

There’s been little doubt in the past few seasons that this summer would result in a max-term extension for McDavid to avoid any talk of a free-agency departure in 2026 and restore his place as the league’s highest-paid player. After a second straight Cup Final loss, though, doubt has crept into public opinion. Those fires were stoked more over the weekend when Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reported that no deal was expected to come across the wire in the near future and that it may not be an eight-year deal if it gets done. TSN’s Ryan Rishaug added that informal negotiations will begin this week, but they’re not close to a position of exchanging initial numbers.

Those talks come after somewhat of a down season for the 28-year-old. He dealt with injuries and a suspension that limited him to 67 games, his lowest total in an 82-game schedule since a collarbone fracture limited him to 46 appearances in his rookie campaign. Of course, a “down season” for the best player in the world still means 74 assists and 100 points, even if his 0.39 goals per game were his lowest total since the 2016-17 campaign. 2024-25 also marked the first time McDavid went without a First Team All-Star selection in back-to-back seasons.

Nonetheless, he will assuredly eclipse teammate Leon Draisaitl’s $14MM cap hit and once again become the league’s highest-paid player sometime in the next 12 months, no matter the team and no matter the length of the contract. Draisaitl signed his extension for 14.67% of the salary cap – if McDavid signs for 15% at the projected $104MM for 2026-27, that would mean a $15.6MM cap hit. He’ll likely get even more – AFP Analytics’ extension projection is a four-year deal at $16.35MM per season, a reasonable bet if he opts for a bridge deal to maximize his career flexibility, particularly if the Oilers enter next season with a weaker roster.

It all comes down to how soon and for how long McDavid is willing to commit to Edmonton. They’ll almost certainly write him a blank check, so the ball will be in his court throughout extension talks. Winning a championship, not cash, will be his top priority. While that gives the Oilers some leverage, they at least need to provide McDavid with the hope/promise that Edmonton is his best chance of winning a Stanley Cup.

Improve Goaltending Situation

Saying goaltending has been an issue for Edmonton in recent years would be an understatement. They haven’t had a legitimate No. 1 netminder since Cam Talbot’s brief peak from 2015 to 2018. Stuart Skinner has been a high-ceiling option at times, but at least so far, simply doesn’t have the game-to-game consistency to get Edmonton to their first Cup win since 1990.

He’s also coming off an exceptionally difficult 2024-25 campaign. His .896 SV% in the regular season was a career-low among his seasons as a full-timer, and that figure dropped to an .889 mark in the postseason. The Oilers faced enough high-profile offensive clubs that Skinner was actually still a league-average goalie compared to the quality he faced, but the last team to win a championship without high-end playoff goaltending was the Avalanche in 2022.

Skinner is still an extremely cost-effective option for the club at a $2.6MM cap hit, though, as is backup Calvin Pickard for $1MM. They’re both entering the final year of their contracts and will be UFAs in 2026. Neither warrants entering extension discussions now with much bigger fish to fry in Edmonton. It might make sense for the Oilers to trade away one of them – either in an in-kind trade for an upgrade or to help open space to pursue the top UFA option in veteran Jake Allen. Either way, it’s hard to imagine Edmonton running things back with the same tandem in 2025-26.

Look At Depth Scoring Upgrades

The Oilers were one of the more active teams in free agency last summer, at least in terms of the volume of signings meant for the NHL roster. They were all veteran wingers on short-term deals, namely Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner, while also retaining Corey Perry. Aside from the last name, those pickups didn’t work out. Both Arvidsson and Skinner were healthy scratches in the playoffs, and neither one had more than 30 points in the regular season.

Their cap situation dictates they’ll need to take a similar approach this summer. They’ll need to be better at identifying who has the upward mobility to play with McDavid or Draisaitl, though, and should be open to younger reclamation projects as well. They’ve already added some cheap insurance in the form of reigning SHL scoring leader David Tomasek on the open market, but will look for NHL-experienced options too as cap space allows. There’s an extension in the works for deadline acquisition Trent Frederic, which should go a long way toward solidifying their middle-six group if he can rediscover his 40-point ceiling.

Image courtesy of Sergei Belski-Imagn Images.

Pro Hockey Rumors is not affiliated with National Hockey League, NHL or NHL.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

scroll to top