An overview of the Edmonton Oilers’ roster that Stan Bowman recently took over from Jeff Jackson and Ken Holland
Twelve days have passed since Stan Bowman was named the General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers. Twelve quiet days on the roster front, with no transactions of any type to this point. The roster remains exactly as it was on July 24, the day Bowman was hired.
Meaning there’s still time for us to renew a time-honoured Cult of Hockey tradition, of analyzing the roster inherited by each new GM as he takes the reins.
While ancient history, each is an instructive read about the state of the Oilers at a time of turmoil, as is the case almost anytime a GM change takes place.
The good news in the current instance is that Bowman takes over a stable group with enviable top-end talent and loads of experience. There are salary cap headaches which will need some sort of creative solution, but a contender right out of the box.
At this moment the Oilers have 43 players under contract, and 2 more Restricted Free Agents who have been tendered qualifying offers. Meaning that essentially 45 of the 50 available contracts are accounted for, and that the rosters of both the Oilers and their top farm club are largely set.
Standard 23-man roster here, with 13 forwards, 8 defencemen and 2 goalies based entirely on which roster players were NHLers at the completion of last season. Every player named here played over 20 regular season and playoff games, with the most marginal case — RFA d-man Philip Broberg — playing 12 regular season games plus the final 10 playoff games. With his waiver exemption status set to expire, I can think of no scenario in which this player won’t be a full-time NHLer in 2024-25.
Similar applies to UFA forward Dylan Holloway, who like Broberg spent some time in the AHL last season but almost certainly will not in the season/s to come. In each case, Bowman has to take care of an important detail, namely to negotiate some sort of bridge contract which projects as relatively cheap if a one-year pact, but progressively more expensive should any sort of term be included.
It’s a deep and experienced crew, especially up front where all but Holloway have played over 500 games in the NHL. 9 of the 12 veterans have averaged at least 23 goals and 48 points per 82 NHL games. Connor McDavid is the second youngest forward of the bunch at 27, and he’s about to play his tenth NHL season for goodness sakes.
The situation is a bit more tenuous on the back end, though the emergence of Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard as one of the best pairings in the entire league has gone a long way to improve the club’s fortunes pretty much since the day Ekholm arrived by trade just before the deadline in 2023. The second pairing as listed isn’t cheap and has had its issues. A couple of depth guys have been added, but much will depend on the continuing emergence of Broberg after his promising showing in the pressure cooker of the conference and Stanley Cup finals.
One of the best contracts Holland signed during his time here was the 3-year extension to up-and-coming goaltender Stu Skinner partway through his breakout 2022-23 season that landed him on the NHL’s All-Rookie Team. Skinner covered the first year of that $2.6 million bet in 2023-24, while backup Calvin Pickard also delivered the goods in a limited role. Alas, Holland’s biggest contractual mistake also occurred in net, a
