Published Oct 10, 2023 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 7 minute read
Connor Brown is the only player on Edmonton Oilers’ opening 21-man roster who didn’t play with the squad last season. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia
Ken Holland promised stability when he arrived in Edmonton 4½ years ago. He has delivered on that promise and then some, even as some critics might suggest that with stability has come an element of rigidity.
For the second preseason in a row the Oilers’ roster was virtually set before camp even began. In 2022-23 the die was cast the moment Ryan McLeod signed a one-year deal for the very specific figure of $798,000 an hour before the first on-ice session of camp. From there it was clear that Holland was aiming for a 21-man roster with only a couple of roster decisions to be determined:
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a one-on-one battle between vets Derek Ryan and Mattias Janmark as the club had room for exactly one $1.25 million contract but not two. Ryan won the job out of camp, while Janmark had to wait for a later injury (to Evander Kane) to open up a spot. a battle between tweeners Brad Malone and Greg McKegg to grab the final forward spot, the key point being it had to be a player at minimum salary.
Here at the Cult of Hockey we correctly forecast on Sep 24 that Ryan and Malone would win their respective battles, and thus nailed the entire 21-man season-opening roster that was declared nearly three weeks later.
Now it’s the fall of 2023, and the process has nearly been as straightforward as a year ago. Again a 21-man roster has been expected, but without the dollar-for-dollar intrigue that necessitated the Ryan vs. Janmark showdown a year ago. This time, thanks in parts to significant pay cuts accepted by both vets, there was always going to be room for both and indeed that turns out to be the case. Better still, the club has finally emerged from cap jail after spending the last three years locked into Long Term Injured Reserve status due to the career-ending injury endured by Oscar Klefbom in 2020.
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This time around the roster was again eminently predictable. Back on Sep 13, we projected this opening group of 20 identified players, with just one open spot.
Here we are nearly four weeks later, and on Monday the opening roster was effectively declared as exactly those 20 players. Even the forward lines are accurate, for now. There has been some churn on the d-corps due to multiple preseason injuries, while the situation in goal is very competitive. But the names of the players involved in those battles are exactly as anticipated for weeks.
The 21st spot, an apparent showdown between forwards Raphael Lavoie, Lane Pederson and PTO Adam Erne, still hasn’t been resolved. Instead, it is temporarily occupied by defenceman Markus Niemelainen, who is injured and cannot be waived; given his one-way contract he must stay on the roster until his situation is resolved.
The Oilers have come out ahead on one key matter, though. With no spots available, all of Lavoie, Pederson and depth defenceman Ben Gleason were waived on Sunday. To the surprise of some, all three cleared that process on Monday and can now be designated for assignment by the Oilers.
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With those successful waivers comes a new level of flexibility for Holland, who can now move any and all of those tweeners between the farm and the big club for at least the opening 10 games of the season and likely much longer than that depending on how he plays his cards.
One thing the GM was quite clear about was that Lavoie is unlikely to be the first to get a look. He told Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic: “With a 19-skater roster — 12 forwards and seven D (ideally) — it doesn’t give us the luxury to carry a young player that we can grow. We need everybody, all hands on deck… When we’re only carrying 12 forwards, we’ve got to carry forwards that are going to be in the lineup every night. They can’t go through growing pains.”
In fact the designated 12th forward does not need to be in the line-up every night, as Jay Woodcroft has the option of dressing a 7th defenceman instead. That’s an approach Woody has used in close to half of his NHL games to date.
It’s not like younger players have the market cornered on making mistakes, either. In a perfect world, they make a few along the way and learn from them. It’s an essential part of the growth process.
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But as Holland correctly pointed out about three former first-round picks that have worked their way on to the team during his tenure, it’s not generally a single leap to NHL success. All of Evan Bouchard, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway took parts of two if not three season to gradually work their way up the ladder. Broberg and Holloway remain entangled in that process, even as both project to be full-timers in 2023-24 after splitting last season between NHL and AHL.
Similarly Ryan McLeod, the Oilers’ second-round pick the year before choosing Lavoie in that same range, also bounced around a little between leagues for a bit, even as he found a full-time home in the NHL before the expiry of his ELC.
By contrast, Lavoie has played out his first contract without a single NHL game, and now begins his bridge deal still in the lower league, having been passed over by all 32 NHL clubs, not just 1. Worse still from his perspective is the qualifying offer he controversially signed in the summer has a much lower AHL component than he might have been able to negotiate in concert with a two-way deal that paid minimum salary at the NHL level. He now faces the enormous challenge of putting all of that to the side to focus on furthering his game in yet a fourth season in the AHL, awaiting an opportunity that might arise in the event of injury on the big club. Worked for Klim Kostin a year ago.
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Meanwhile, veterans like the 26-year-old Pederson (71 career games) or 28-year-old Erne (355 career games) appear to have the inside track on that 12th forward position when it comes available. That might well be sooner than later; while the Oilers couldn’t put Niemelainen on LTIR to open the season without consequences, now that he’s opened the season on a cap-compliant roster, he could well be LTIR’d as soon as Day 2, which is the day Edmonton actually plays its first game. At this distance we don’t know enough about Niemo’s actual injury status to do more than speculate, but he left the Oilers’ fifth preseason game early and then missed the final three games altogether.
The other option is to go with the 20 healthy guys on the roster in an 11F/7D/2G deployment until such time as Niemelainen heals and potentially goes on waivers himself to make room for that 12th forward. Though he is on the roster for technical reasons just now, the towering Finn may well have dropped below Gleason on the potential call-up list once the dust settles.
For all the discussion about the players around the edges of the roster, the core group of 20 looks strong. All are NHL veterans, indeed all but one (Connor Brown) were Oilers a year ago. Of them, only Holloway didn’t see action in the playoffs. It’s a group that’s already played plenty of important games together and are building towards a run at the Stanley Cup.
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A few questions remain to be answered.
Are Mattias Ekholm, Brett Kulak and McLeod healthy enough to start the season after missing all or much of the pre-season? Or might the team have to play a man short in Game 1, as they did a season ago. Is Ekholm going to pair up with Broberg, as seems to have been the original plan? (They never got a chance to play in preseason, but Ekholm was spotted at Monday’s practice playing on the right side, which might be a clue.) Who’s going to be the starting goalie? Last year’s choice Stu Skinner appears atop most depth charts including our own, but Campbell outplayed him in preseason. Soup has now put together an impressive run of 9 consecutive appearances since Apr 01 (2 late-season starts, 4 postseason relief appearances, 3 preseason contests) in which he allowed no more than 1 goal in any of them! Best guess here is that each will start one of the Vancouver games, the season opener in one instance, the home opener in the other.
The answers to these questions will emerge soon enough, as the season opener is now less than 48 hours away. The waiting game is nearly over.
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