Oilers and AGM Holland mutually part ways
September 17, 2024
September 18, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg
The leaves are beginning to fall. The weather is getting slightly cooler. NFL football has started, and the MLB playoff races are heating up. The Young Stars Classic has come and gone. That means that the NHL season is near. The Oilers reported to training camp on Wednesday.
There’s a surprising amount of mystery and intrigue in this year’s Oilers training camp despite the team having come within a game of winning a Stanley Cup just a few short months ago. I’ll take you through some of the key battles that we should be watching during training camp.
Forwards
| Nugent-Hopkins | McDavid | Hyman |
| J. Skinner | Draisaitl | Arvidsson |
| Janmark | Henrique | C. Brown |
| Ryan | Perry | |
| Kane (inj) |
There are three players that I see being involved in a battle for the final forward spot out of camp.
Raphael Lavoie
Lavoie got a quick cup of coffee with the Oilers last season. He played seven games where he was -2 and averaged just 7:17 of ice time per game.
The 23-year old played right-wing in the NHL last season, but he can play on either side. He played a lot of left wing in the AHL last season. A full summer of training and an opportunity on the other side of the ice might just be what the doctor ordered for Lavoie’s NHL chances.
Vasily Podkolzin
The 23-year old Russian winger is a reclamation project for the Oilers this season. He’s got a boat load of potential. He plays a physical style, and he’s got a heavy shot. Podkolzin has to earn his roster spot with a solid camp though. He should be plenty motivated after the team that drafted him gave him up for a fourth round pick because they assumed that they would lose him on waivers at some point during training camp.
Related: Oilers acquire Podkolzin
Podkolzin has typically played right-wing in his short career, which is his off wing. His shot is an asset that makes him playing his off wing dangerous; but perhaps a move to his natural wing will allow him to see the game in a different way, which could yield positive results.
Mike Hoffman
The Oilers made the surprise announcement that Hoffman signed a PTO with the team on Wednesday. The 34-year old got 23 points in 66 games for the San Jose Sharks last season. His offensive output was the lowest since Hoffman became a full-time NHLer in the 2014-15 season.
NHL Edge says that Hoffman ranks below the 50th percentile in all speed related metrics. It also says that his 14.1% shooting percentage put him in the 83rd percentile last season, and his top shot speed put him in the 92nd percentile. Hoffman can’t skate well anymore, and his offensive production has fallen off a cliff; but he can still rip the puck. If the Oilers have lacked one thing over the years, it’s finishing in the bottom six. That’s all that Hoffman could really offer.
Hoffman has done a lot of his damage on the powerplay throughout his career. He only got six powerplay points last year though. Hoffman has always played the right half wall on the powerplay, which is Draisaitl’s spot. He simply wouldn’t get first unit powerplay time with the Oilers, so he would need to earn a roster spot with his even strength play.
His seventeen even strength points in 66 games are on par with the production of a fourth liner. Hoffman doesn’t do any of the things that you might want a fourth liner to do, such as hitting and killing penalties. He will have to score his way onto the team in the preseason.
Honourable Mention: Matthew Savoie, Roby Jarventie, Noah Philp
Predicted outcome
The thing that Hoffman has going for him is that he’s a natural left winger. Podkolzin is a left-handed shooter that prefers the right side. Say what you want about Hoffman, but he produced more offence than either Podkolzin or Lavoie did in the NHL last season.
I see parallels between late-career Hoffman and late-career James Neal. Neal fell from 19 goals in his 32-year old season to just five goals in his 33-year old season in 2020-21. He played one more year where he split time between the NHL and the AHL.
Hoffman turns 35 in November. His goal total dropped from fourteen in 2022-23 to ten last season. I could see Hoffman getting both AHL and NHL time this season.
The fact that the Oilers brought Hoffman in speaks volumes about what the team thinks of Podkolzin and Lavoie right now. They would both have to clear waivers before being sent down to the AHL. The Canucks traded Podkolzin out of fear that a team would claim him off waivers because they didn’t think that he would make their team. The Oilers would be taking a risk by exposing Podkolzin to waivers, but they are probably comfortable with that risk since Podkolzin’s stock is so low right now. As we saw last year with Lavoie, the odds of a player clearing waivers are higher if he gets waived in training camp when everyone else gets waived, so the smarter play might be to waive Podkolzin during camp rather than doing it during the regular season.
I think Hoffman will get a contract and Podkolzin will start the year in the AHL should he not be claimed on waivers. I don’t think that’s intelligent asset management, but I think that’s what will happen.
Remember that whoever wins this spot will be relegated to the thirteenth forward spot once Kane recovers from his surgery. Oilers GM Stan Bowman confirmed that Kane will be having surgery, and Kane said that he will be having both adductors, two hernias, and two torn abdominal muscles repaired. The timeline for recovery is unknown at this point.
Defence
| Ekholm | Bouchard |
| Nurse (inj) | |
| Kulak | |
Cody Ceci, Vincent Desharnais, and Philip Broberg all left the team this summer. All three of those players were healthy scratches at some point in the playoffs this past spring; but all three of them played in the Stanley Cup Final. Ceci had been Darnell Nurse’s partner for the last three seasons, and Broberg assumed the role in the latter stages of the 2024 playoffs. Both are gone, which has made for some intriguing camp battles on the blue line.
The fact that Nurse is expected to miss most of training camp while recovering from a nagging injury from the playoffs further clouds the situation. The identity of Nurse’s next partner is the biggest question heading into this coming season, but that won’t be answered until the end of camp at the earliest.
Two spots are open on the blue line, with a third spot potentially available for a seventh defenceman. Four players will be in contention for these spots.
Ty Emberson
Emberson was the return in the Ceci trade. The Oilers gave up a legitimate top four defenceman and a third round pick to get Emberson, who has only played 30 NHL games. The 24-year old performed admirably for the San Jose Sharks last season, but the sample size isn’t large enough to guarantee success for the Oilers. He’s a defensively oriented player that has thrived in Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch’s system before. The data loves Emberson, and we know the coach likes him. Time will tell if he will earn a roster spot out of camp though.
Related: O’Reilly and Emberson moves have Parkatti’s fingerprints all over them
Troy Stecher
Stecher was acquired at last season’s trade deadline. He got into seven games for the Oilers before the playoffs, which he missed due to an ankle injury that required surgery. Stecher signed a two-year deal with the Oilers this summer. He hasn’t played an AHL game since 2016-17, when he played the only four AHL games of his career. Stecher hasn’t established himself as a mainstay in an NHL lineup in the time since then though. He has changed teams six times since the 2021-22 season, and he hasn’t played in more than 61 NHL games in a season since 2019-20. He has only played 74 NHL games in the last two seasons. He’s a mobile defenceman that can move the puck fairly well, but he doesn’t produce much offence for a player with his skill set.
Josh Brown
Brown was essentially brought in to replace Desharnias’ size. The 6’5”, 220 lb right-handed defenceman’s size is his biggest asset. The 2013 sixth rounder has played in 119 NHL games in the last two seasons, but his underlying numbers have never been stellar. Perhaps that is the result of his playing on terrible teams for his whole career; but Brown will have his work cut out for him to earn a spot out of camp, even after signing a three-year, $3 million deal with an AAV of $1 million per season this summer.
Travis Dermott
Dermott is coming to camp on a PTO. He has a couple of advantages working for him here. One is that he can play on either side. That versatility is useful in a seventh defenceman. Another is his familiarity with Knoblauch, his former junior coach. The other is the fact that if signed, his contract would likely be for the league minimum.
Related: Dermott agrees to PTO with the Oilers
Dermott is the only lefty in this group competing for the final spots in this defence group. He could well simply be a placeholder for Nurse in training camp, but there would be an opening on the left side if Brett Kulak was to be deployed in the top four when Nurse is healthy.
Honourable mention: Connor Carrick
Predicted outcome
The one thing I feel is certain is that Emberson will be in the top six. The coach likes him, the data likes him, the team paid a handsome price to get him, and he’s already been claimed on waivers once. I don’t think the Oilers will risk losing him on waivers.
The interesting thing about the other three players in contention here is that they all played on the same team last year, and they all played close to the same amount of games. Stecher led the trio in average time on ice per game overall and at even strength. Dermott was second in those categories, and Brown was a distant third. Dermott got the most penalty killing time per game of the three last year. Stecher was second, and Brown was third once again. It should be noted that all three players averaged over two minutes per game on the penalty kill.
I think Brown is the odd man out here. Injuries are always a factor, so he will be needed at some point. The reality is that he’s the worst of the bunch in this group though. Brown would be a guarantee to clear waivers with his contract being what it is (3 x $1 million).
That means that I think Dermott will get a contract and that Stecher will be on the roster as well.
Wrap
This is how I believe that the Oilers will start the 2024-25 season:
| Nugent-Hopkins ($5.125M) | McDavid ($12.5M) | Hyman ($5.5M) |
| J. Skinner ($3M) | Draisaitl ($8.5M) | Arvidsson ($4M) |
| Janmark ($1.45M) | Henrique ($3M) | C. Brown ($1M) |
| Hoffman ($775k)* | Ryan ($900k) | Perry ($1.15M) |
| Ekholm ($6M) | Bouchard ($3.9M) |
| Nurse ($9.25M) | Stecher ($787,500) |
| Kulak ($2.75M) | Emberson ($950k) |
| Dermott ($775k)* |
| S. Skinner ($3.6M) |
| Pickard ($1M) |
Injured: Kane ($5.125M)
Buyouts: Campbell ($1.1M), Neal ($1,916,667)
Overage: $3.55M
Total: $87,604,167
Cap Space: $395,833
Active roster: 21
Bowman really wants to accrue cap space this season. Having both Hoffman and Dermott on league minimum contracts would certainly help Bowman achieve that goal. This active roster has 21 players, but they could choose to waive Dermott and carry the bare minimum of twelve forwards and six defencemen. If injuries were to become a problem, then Kane could be placed on LTIR to create cap space for reinforcements.
I think it will be a rotating cast at the bottom of the roster. I don’t think Hoffman will get 82 games. Podkolzin will get games with the Oilers this season if he does not get claimed on waivers.
It will be more of a carousel on defence though. The reality is that none of Emberson, Stecher, Dermott, or Brown are top four defenders. I think the responsibility of playing the right side of the second pairing will be shared by Brett Kulak, Emberson, and Stecher. I also think that the third pairing will have many different looks throughout the season.
We get eight preseason games between Sunday and October 4. Some fans complain about the excessive amount of preseason games, but I prefer to think of it as a chance to watch more hockey and to watch these training camp battles play out.
