Sam Gagner Won't Play In The Preseason
- While Sam Gagner is looking to earn a third stint with the Oilers, he has a tough hill to climb as Postmedia’s Jim Matheson relays that the veteran won’t play in the preseason. Gagner is still working his way back from hip surgery and his doctor has only recommended that he be allowed to practice for the next few weeks. The 34-year-old has expressed an openness to starting the year with AHL Bakersfield and since he won’t be able to make his case for a roster spot in exhibition action, the Condors seem like the most probable landing spot for him.
Edmonton Oilers Injury Updates
- The Athletic’s Daniel Nugent-Bowman shared two injury updates from Edmonton Oilers training camp. 23-year-old center Ryan McLeod had a “soft-tissue tweak and was kept off the ice for precautionary reasons,” while minor-league netminder Ryan Fanti is out with a “hip issue” on a month-to-month basis. McLeod is expected to be a major part of the Oilers’ bottom-six plans, so the hope is that he’ll quickly resume full participation in training camp. Fanti, who is also 23, played in 34 games in the ECHL last season and is likely to return there once he is fully recovered.
Mattias Ekholm Sidelined With Minor Hip Injury
- Edmonton Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm is dealing with a minor hip flexor injury and won’t be a full participant when the team’s training camp begins tomorrow, general manager Ken Holland informed reporters, including TSN’s Ryan Rishaug. It’s unclear whether this is an injury that was sustained last season and hasn’t fully healed or whether it’s something Ekholm sustained during the offseason. He didn’t miss any games after coming over from the Nashville Predators prior to last season’s trade deadline. The 33-year-old Swede, who has three seasons remaining on a deal carrying a $6.25MM cap hit, notched five goals and 21 points in 33 regular-season and playoff games in an Oilers jersey to close out the previous campaign. He is once again expected to play a pivotal top-four role and remains a valuable second-pair partner to growing power-play dynamo Evan Bouchard.
Could Brandon Sutter Be A Candidate For An AHL PTO?
- Last season, Jason Demers attended Edmonton’s camp on a PTO and agreed to an AHL tryout agreement after that before being converted to an NHL contract midseason. Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal wonders if the Oilers might try the same approach with Brandon Sutter. Being out of hockey for two years altogether, going this route would allow both sides more time to assess his overall readiness to play at the top level rather than forcing Edmonton to make a decision on his fate over the next few weeks.
Edmonton Oilers Sign Adam Erne To PTO
The Edmonton Oilers have signed forward Adam Erne to a professional tryout agreement, per a team release.
Erne spent the last four seasons in Detroit, scoring 27 goals and 35 assists for 62 points across 241 games in a Red Wings jersey. The gritty, 6-foot-1 winger is coming off a two-year, $4.2MM contract signed following an arbitration filing in 2021.
Last season was a disappointing one for the 28-year-old, who found himself on the waiver wire in early February for the first time in his career. He spent around a month with AHL Grand Rapids, recording five assists in nine games. The Red Wings recalled him before the trade deadline in March, and he spent the rest of the season in the big leagues.
Erne, the 33rd overall pick in the 2013 NHL Draft by the Tampa Bay Lightning, grew into a bottom-six role with the team that drafted him before they dealt his signing rights to the Red Wings in exchange for a fourth-round pick in August of 2019.
He joins Sam Gagner and Brandon Sutter as PTO adds during Edmonton’s camp, although given his lack of history playing center, Erne has a foggier path to earning a contract. He’ll have to demonstrate he can provide more than youngster Dylan Holloway or Mattias Janmark in order to get a contract, whereas Gagner and Sutter are only battling with strict depth center Lane Pederson for the fourth-line pivot job.
Unless Erne would be okay with an AHL assignment out of the gate, it’s unlikely this stint in camp will result in an NHL contract. Edmonton’s NHL roster availability is extremely limited – per CapFriendly’s projections, they only have room to carry one extra skater on their roster in order to be cap-compliant at the beginning of the season.
Could Gagner Be The Early Front-Runner For The Final Forward Spot?
When word surfaced this summer that Connor Hellebuyck was hoping for a long-term deal worth around $9.5MM per season, trade speculation cooled sharply. To that end, Murat Ates of The Athletic speculates (subscription link) that the Jets could shift focus and look to try to extend the netminder on a short-term contract. Since Winnipeg’s books are relatively clean for 2024-25, they could theoretically make an offer around that range in the hopes that they could entice him to stick around for at least another year or two. That would allow Hellebuyck to get the top dollar that he’s seeking while extending Winnipeg’s current window, one that GM Kevin Cheveldayoff believes his team can contend in. If a long-term deal at that price point can’t be done, this could be the next best option.
Elsewhere around the NHL:
- Kurt Leavins of the Edmonton Journal breaks down the various camp battles that will be coming at training camp. The most notable one is likely the battle for the 12th (and quite possibly final) forward spot on the roster. Veterans Sam Gagner and Brandon Sutter will be in camp on tryouts while internally, James Hamblin and Raphael Lavoie are candidates. Lavoie’s contract – he opted to take his qualifying offer instead of signing a two-way deal that traded some NHL pay for more guaranteed money – makes him hard to fit in on their books. Accordingly, Leavins gives Gagner the edge for now but wonders if Edmonton might be keeping an eye on the waiver wire as camp progresses to see if another option presents itself.
- The trade deadline has tentatively been set for March 8th, relays Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link). While that seems later than usual – it’s often in late February – there are games scheduled until April 18th; the deadline typically falls 40 days before the end of the regular season.
Latest On Philip Broberg
When the Edmonton Oilers selected Swedish defenseman Philip Broberg with the eighth overall pick at the 2019 draft, they likely had hopes that by 2023, he’d be a notable part of their NHL roster. Numerous players selected after Broberg have gone on to become legitimate difference-makers in the NHL, such as Trevor Zegras, who the Oilers’ division rival Anaheim Ducks selected with the very next pick.
To be fair to the Oilers, Broberg was always more of a project pick even at the time. Broberg is a gifted skater with impressive physical tools, and the hope was that those tools would eventually be developed into the more polished skillset of an elite NHL defenseman.
That hasn’t happened yet, though. Broberg spent two seasons after he was drafted playing pro hockey in the SHL for Skellefteå AIK and represented Sweden in a big role at the IIHF World Junior Championships both years. He made his North American debut in 2021-22, splitting time between the NHL with Edmonton and the AHL with the Bakersfield Condors.
This past season, Broberg spent most of his time in the NHL, skating in 46 games for the Oilers. He didn’t play a huge role, averaging just 12:36 TOI per game, although he did get a look on the penalty kill. Going into next season, the hope is that Broberg, now 22, will emerge as an impact NHLer just as so many from his 2019 draft class already have.
The Athletic’s Alan Mitchell writes that “there’s plenty of chatter from management” in Edmonton that Broberg will be “playing more this year,” with the implication being that Broberg will eventually replace incumbent top-four veterans Cody Ceci or Brett Kulak. (subscription link)
Kulak appears the likelier of the two to end up replaced in role by Broberg, simply because he’s a left-shot blueliner (like Broberg) while Ceci plays on the right side. Broberg has played on either side but one would think Broberg would reach his maximum comfort in the NHL playing on his strong side.
The fate of Broberg this season is of great importance to the Oilers, not just from a developmental perspective but also from a financial one. Salary cap constraints are likely to force the Oilers into carrying less than the maximum of 23 players on their active roster during the season. Broberg costs just $863k against the cap, while Kulak’s contract earns him $2.75MM per year through 2025-26.
Should Broberg find a way to finally take the next step in the NHL and seize a top-four role from Kulak, the Oilers could consider dealing the veteran to receive much-needed cap savings. But whether or not he actually takes that needed next step is still to be seen, and it could make Broberg one of the more intriguing players to watch in the preseason and early parts of the regular season.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Edmonton Oilers Rank Last In Salary Cap Rankings
Daily Faceoff has ranked the Edmonton Oilers last in salary cap efficiency. This comes as no surprise after the website began its annual salary cap rankings list and after a deep dive into the numbers determined that there isn’t a team in a worse situation financially than the Oilers. It isn’t a shock given the Oilers current salary cap woes. The team finds itself with just 21 players on the roster and only $382,499 in cap space. Though finishing dead last on the list is new, Edmonton ranked second last in last year’s version of the list.
Daily Faceoff’s ranking system looks at no-move clauses, dead cap space, the quality of long-term contracts, bargain contracts, and the good deals versus the bad ones. Unfortunately, based on those criteria, it is easy to see why the Oilers find themselves at the bottom of that list. Edmonton has several problematic contracts on their books, and while they have some bargains like Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The bad deals outweigh the great ones.
Darnell Nurse is a really good defenseman; he eats a ton of minutes for the Oilers and plays a lot of tough situations. However, he does suffer a lot of mental lapses, and at $9.25 million a season, he just doesn’t bring the offensive upside you would like to see in a defenseman making that kind of money. Nurse is also likely to wear down as the miles pile up on his body. Those difficult minutes require that he play with a ton of physicality. It could take its toll on the 28-year-old when he gets on the wrong side of 30.
Some of the other bad contracts on the Oilers are goaltender Jack Campbell at $5MM per season as well as third-line winger Warren Foegele and third-pairing defenceman Brett Kulak at $2.75 million each. The contracts come in addition to the nearly $2MM per year the Oilers are still paying on the James Neal buyout.
On the surface, these contracts don’t look like outrageous overpayments because all the players listed above are still functional NHLers. However, in the flat cap era Campbell, Foegele, and Kulak are all replacement-level NHLers who could have been replaced by other players on contracts of less than $1MM per season. Couple that with the mishandling of Nurse’s previous bridge deals and it all amounts to around $10MM in inefficient salary cap spending that could lead to big problems for the Oilers down the road when they need to offer extensions to McDavid, Draisaitl, and Evan Bouchard.
Edmonton Oilers Add To Coaching Staff
The Edmonton Oilers announced today that they’ve added to their coaching staff promoting Noah Segall to their video coach while Mike Fanelli has been hired as Video & Coaching Analytics Coordinator. The news broke this morning as Segall will replace former video coach Jeremy Coupal who had a mutual split with the team in July. Coupal had become a bit of a cult hero in Edmonton thanks to his many split-second decisions to challenge offside calls on opposing team goals. Thanks to Coupal’s quick work the Oilers were able to wipe many goals against off the board, something they are sure to miss in his absence.
Segall does have previous experience in the video coach role with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, a role he held before he joined the Oilers last year and worked under Coupal as Edmonton’s video coordinator. He also worked in college hockey with the University of Vermont, the University of Wisconsin, Canisius College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Segall’s new job, while important, is more of a technical role, while the hiring of Fanelli is an indication that Edmonton is planning to further embrace the fancy stats around the game of hockey. The 28-year-old won a pair of Stanley Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning after spending four years in the team’s analytics department. He also has USHL coaching experience as he served as an assistant with the Sioux City Musketeers, winning a championship with the team in 2022.
Teams have been embracing the numbers game for quite a while now, but it seems that it has become more prevalent in the last few years. Just last week the Ottawa Senators hired the first full-time analytics person on their staff when they brought Sean Tierney into the organization, signalling that teams realize that there could be an advantage to evaluating the deeper facets of the game that go unnoticed to the naked eye.
2009 NHL Draft Take Two: Tenth Overall Pick
Hindsight is an amazing thing, and allows us to look back and wonder “what could have been.” Though perfection is attempted, scouting and draft selection is far from an exact science and sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way teams – or players – intended. For every Patrick Kane, there is a Patrik Stefan.
We’re looking back at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft and asking how it would shake out knowing what we do now. Will the first round remain the same, or will some late-round picks jump up to the top of the board?
The results of our redraft so far are as follows, with their original draft position in parentheses:
1st Overall: Victor Hedman, New York Islanders (2)
2nd Overall: John Tavares, Tampa Bay Lightning (1)
3rd Overall: Ryan O’Reilly, Colorado Avalanche (33)
4th Overall: Matt Duchene, Atlanta Thrashers (3)
5th Overall: Chris Kreider, Los Angeles Kings (19)
6th Overall: Nazem Kadri, Phoenix Coyotes (7)
7th Overall: Mattias Ekholm, Toronto Maple Leafs (102)
8th Overall: Evander Kane, Dallas Stars (4)
9th Overall: Brayden Schenn, Ottawa Senators (5)
The Senators get a marked upgrade over their original ninth-overall pick, defenseman Jared Cowen. Schenn won our polling by a narrow margin, beating out Oliver Ekman-Larsson for the honors by just a handful of percentage points.
Instead, Ottawa takes Schenn, who, had he stayed in Ottawa his whole career to date, would rank third in franchise all-time scoring behind Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza. While never quite growing into the elite echelon of players some expected him to be, thanks to his fifth-overall billing, Schenn has been a consistent contributor and is arguably getting better with age, putting up some of his best (and most consistent) point totals in recent seasons. His 589 career points in 858 games are certainly nothing to scoff at, and he ranks fifth in scoring among his draft class – making it a bit of a surprise he’s fallen this far in our reader polling.
A member of the Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues in 2019, Schenn has now cracked the 60-point mark twice in a Blues uniform after recording 65 last season, something he never did earlier in his career with the Kings and Philadelphia Flyers.
Now, the Edmonton Oilers are on the clock at tenth overall. Their original pick continued a trend of three underwhelming selections: first Scott Glennie in Dallas, Cowen in Ottawa, and now Swedish winger Magnus Pääjärvi in Edmonton. He’s certainly the best out of those three players, getting into 467 NHL contests over the course of nine years, but he lasted just three seasons in Edmonton and fizzled out quickly after a strong rookie campaign in 2010-11 that saw him post 15 goals and 34 points in 80 games as a 19-year-old.
He looked like quite a solid pick at the time. He spent nearly all of the 2008-09 season playing Swedish pro-level hockey with Timrå IK in the Elitserien (the SHL’s predecessor) and had decent middle-tier production, recording seven goals and 17 points in 50 games. He took a step forward in his post-draft year, recording 29 points in 49 games in 2009-10, but he could just never regain his offensive confidence after posting just eight points in 41 games during his sophomore year with Edmonton. After later stints with the Blues and Senators, Pääjärvi is now back in Europe playing for Timrå.
While he did have a good stint in the NHL as a depth player, there are surely better options for Edmonton available with the tenth overall selection. Who would you pick, PHR readers? Make your voice heard below:
If you can’t access the poll above, click here to vote.