Likely Oilers season opening roster submission
October 6, 2024
October 7, 2024 by Ryan Lotsberg
The deadline for NHL teams to submit their season opening rosters was on Monday at 3 pm MT. Over the weekend, I took a stab at predicting what the Edmonton Oilers would do; but I ended up missing the mark with my predictions. They loaned Noah Philp to the Bakersfield Condors on Sunday; and they placed Raphael Lavoie, Josh Brown, Drake Caggiula, and Olivier Rodrigue on waivers.
Related: Likely Oilers season opening roster submission
Monday started with the news that while everyone else cleared waivers, Lavoie was claimed by the Vegas Golden Knights. It was clearly a risk that the organization was comfortable taking. It’s unfortunate that the team put five years of development into Lavoie only to lose him on waivers, but that’s the reality of having a championship contending team. Players like Lavoie that excel in the AHL but have trouble sticking in the NHL don’t typically break into the league on contending teams, especially ones like Lavoie who have a scoring line skill set rather than a checking line skill set.
I always remind people that a player passing through waivers does not automatically mean that they will get sent down to the AHL. Passing through waivers allows that player to move up and down between the NHL and the AHL without going through waivers again for 30 days, but there needs to be another transaction to actually send the player down.
The Oilers did not formally announce that any of the players that were placed on waivers on Sunday were actually sent down to Bakersfield; but the salary cap math says that all of Brown, Caggiula, and Rodrigue were sent down to Bakersfield.
The Oilers later announced that they signed Cam Wright to a one-year, two way contract with a cap hit of $952,000. Wright’s contract was not registered with the NHL in time to count for Monday according to PuckPedia, so Wright’s contract will hit the books starting on Tuesday. The team also announced that they recalled Matthew Savoie, who was loaned to the Condors last week.
The sum of losing the players that were waived and sent to Bakersfield and having Wright and Savoie on the roster will put the Oilers $53 away from the league’s $88 million salary cap.
Being snuggled up that tight to the salary cap isn’t the best way to accrue cap space throughout the season, as Oilers GM Stan Bowman has been quite clear about wanting to do this season. The reason that a team would want to put themselves as close to the salary cap as possible is to maximize their potential LTIR relief after placing a player on LTIR. Bowman said that he doesn’t want to use LTIR so that the team can accrue cap space throughout the season, but he did also say that the team could potentially use LTIR if they find themselves in a pinch.
As you can see in the post from PuckPedia, the plan is to place Evander Kane on LTIR on Tuesday. Putting Kane on LTIR would actually give the Oilers more available cap space right now than what they could accrue by the deadline if they were to not place Kane on LTIR, but that logic would go out the window if Kane was to return during the regular season because the Oilers would need to be able to shed enough cap space to get back under the $88 million salary cap in order to activate Kane.
The Oilers announced that Kane’s recovery time would be at least five to six months. The surgery occurred on September 20, 2024. Six months from that date is March 20, 2025, which is near the end of the regular season. The way that the Oilers worded their announcement left room for error, which makes Kane missing the entire regular season a real possibility.
Savoie’s inclusion on the season opening roster makes much more sense with the understanding that Kane will be placed on LTIR on Tuesday. Savoie needs to be on the NHL roster on the day that Kane goes onto LTIR in order for his the value of his potential performance bonus to be included in the performance bonus pool for LTIR relief. All potential performance bonuses of players on the active roster on the day that a player is placed on LTIR go into the performance bonus pool. Should the NHL roster have players whose potential performance bonuses add up to a value greater than the value of the performance bonus pool, then the difference gets added to the team’s cap spending. In other words, the player’s performance bonus would count on top of his cap hit.
Savoie can earn up to $1 million in performance bonuses this season. By including Savoie on the roster now, the Oilers have ensured that Savoie’s cap hit will not increase by $1 million should they want to recall him at any point during the season.
The Oilers’ season opening roster included fourteen forwards and only six defencemen. Wright’s addition on Tuesday will bring the total to fifteen. Wright and Savoie will definitely be sent down to Bakersfield before the season starts, and all signs point to Travis Dermott signing a contract. Those moves plus Kane being placed on LTIR will leave the Oilers with twelve forwards and seven defencemen on the active roster. If Kane is placed on LTIR on Tuesday as epxected, then they will be able to carry a full 23-man active roster with zero issues. That could pave the way for Brown and one forward being recalled.
