Hutson inks extension with the Oilers
January 13, 2026
1,000 games of Nugent-Hopkins
January 19, 2026What Tuesday’s Oilers moves mean going forward
Photo Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig - Imagn Images
January 13, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg
Jake Walman and Tristan Jarry have been activated from long-term injured reserve (LTIR), which means that they will be available for the Edmonton Oilers for Tuesday’s game against the Nashville Predators.
Walman has been out since suffering a broken foot from blocking a shot in Tampa Bay on November 20, 2025. He missed the start of the regular season due to a different lower body injury, played seventeen games, then got hurt again. I assume that Walman will slot back in beside Darnell Nurse, who has had a rotating cast beside him on the second pairing while Walman has been out. Alec Regula seems like the most likely candidate to come out of the lineup for Walman, but no lineup decisions have been announced yet.
Jarry got hurt in his third start for the Oilers after being acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins. Jarry had won both of his prior Oilers starts, and he got credit for the win despite leaving the game against the Boston Bruins on December 18, 2025. Like Walman, this was Jarry’s second injury of the season. Hopefully both players are able to get a run of healthy games here.
Related: The risk that came with Jarry for the Oilers
In a corresponding move, Adam Henrique was placed onto LTIR. Henrique was placed on injured reserve after blocking a shot in the Oilers’ win against the Predators on January 6. We know that he will be out until after the Olympics. The reason that Henrique had to go onto LTIR now is because the Oilers would have had to have shed $2,061,666 to activate Walman and Jarry if they hadn’t put Henrique on LTIR.
Placing Henrique on LTIR simply kicks the can down the road yet again. The Oilers’ reality is that they need to shed some money before Henrique comes back. The question that we’ve been asking all season is how will the Oilers shed that money?
With Jarry healthy, the Oilers are now carrying three goalies. Teams rarely carry three goalies because it causes a lot of headaches including distribution of playing time and working three goalies into practices. Odds are that one of Calvin Pickard or Connor Ingram will be removed from the roster at some point.
Removing Pickard from the roster would be a wildly unpopular move in the dressing room because Pickard is respected so greatly, but there’s a real chance that Pickard ends up being the odd man out based on performance. Pickard’s play has improved significantly since Jarry was injured, but Ingram has been better.
Another interesting move made by the Oilers today was changing Ingram’s recall from an emergency recall to a regular recall. Ingram was recalled by the Oilers on an emergency basis on December 19, 2025 after Jarry was injured. The “emergency” aspect means that Ingram was able to play nine NHL games before requiring waivers to be sent back to the Bakersfield Condors. Monday’s win over the Chicago Blackhawks was Ingram’s seventh game since being recalled. Had they not changed the status of his recall, Ingram would’ve been able to play two more games before requiring waivers to be sent back to the Condors.
As a regular recall, Ingram can be sent down without requiring waivers before he plays ten games or within 30 days of the original recall. That means he can be sent down without waivers within the next five days.
If the Oilers had kept Ingram on emergency recall status, they could’ve drawn those two starts out over a longer period of time to delay the waiver requirement, especially with three goalies healthy. Now, they have effectively shortened the amount of time Ingram is exempt from waivers for.
Aside from his having played well up to this point and having a desire to make him the backup, the only other potential reason I can think of for not sending Ingram back to Bakersfield today is the play of Connor Ungar. Ungar is 5-0 with a 1.38 goals against average and a .953 save percentage for the Condors since Ingram was recalled by the big club. The 24-year old is playing unbelievably well, and I think the Oilers want to get as long of a look at him at the AHL level as they can.
Prior to his recall to the Condors, Ungar had played for four different ECHL teams this season because of a logjam in the Oilers organization. Samuel Jonsson is playing in North America for the first time this season, and Nathaniel Day is in his first professional season. Both are playing for the Oilers’ ECHL affiliate, the Ft. Wayne Komets. If Ingram or Pickard was to be sent down to Bakersfield, then one of Ungar, Jonsson, or Day would need to be loaned to another team. If Ungar’s season thus far is any indication, it would be him being loaned to another ECHL team. I don’t think the Oilers want to do that right now because he’s playing so well.
The Condors have two games in the next five days, so the Oilers could get two more looks at Ungar before Ingram is required to clear waivers to be sent down. I don’t think squeezing one or two more AHL starts out of Ungar before another loan is arranged is crucial, unless they just need time to arrange said loan. If time to arrange a loan is an issue, then I’m not sure why the Oilers would make the move to shorten the amount of time that Ingram is exempt from waivers for. It seems more plausible that they’re comfortable with Ingram at the NHL level moving forward and they want to give Ungar a longer AHL run.
Regardless of the reason, the Oilers have effectively shortened the period of time that Ingram does not require waivers to be sent down for. That tells me that they aren’t worried about Ingram being eligible for waivers. That either means they don’t care about the risk of losing him, or they will simply keep him. Based on his stellar recent play, I suspect that they want to keep him. It would be horrible asset management to place a player on waivers to move him down when it could’ve been easily avoided by acting sooner.
Pickard has been eligible for waivers for the entire season, so sending him down without risk of losing him has never been a possibility. Putting themselves in a position where they would have to risk losing Ingram if they try to send him down seems like a sign that they don’t want to send him down. Pickard is the only other NHL level goalie that they would consider moving.
If Ingram gets sent down, then the Oilers would still need to shed $911,666 to activate Henrique. Sending Ike Howard back to Bakersfield with Ingram would be enough.
If Pickard gets moved off the roster, then the Oilers would still need to shed $1,061,666. They could do that by waiving and demoting or trading a player with a cap hit of $1.15 million or more such as Ty Emberson, Kasperi Kapanen, Mattias Janmark, or Jack Roslovic. Janmark is a slight possibility, but don’t expect it.
Let’s keep going up the list. Henrique is unwilling to waive his no-movement clause, so that’s not an option. There’s absolutely zero chance that the Oilers would move Walman right now. The next man up the salary chart after Henrique and Walman is Andrew Mangiapane. It just so happens that he’s seeking greener pastures.
A Mangiapane trade wouldn’t necessarily signal that Pickard is the goalie being moved off the roster, but trading Mangiapane is the only way that moving Pickard is a possibility barring some other unexpected and unlikely decision involving Emberson, Kapanen, Janmark, or Roslovic.
Moving Mangiapane is also the only way that the Oilers would be able to make any changes to the forward group. Moving Pickard and Roslovic off the roster would put the Oilers $438,334 under the cap, which is not enough space to add another player. Moving Mangiapane alone would put the Oilers $1,538,334 under the cap without moving a goalie off the roster.
If Mangiapane and Pickard were to be removed from the roster, the Oilers could acquire another forward with a cap hit of $2,538,334 or less; or they could acquire a forward with a cap hit of $2,688,334 or less if Ingram and Mangiapane were moved off the roster.
Moving Mangiapane would also give the Oilers the option of keeping all three goalies with the big club for the rest of the season. It wouldn’t necessarily be about injury insurance because they could send Ingram down in the next five days and still have him available in case of an injury. Keeping all three goalies with the big club for the rest of the season would signify a fight between Pickard and Ingram for the backup job next year more so than for the rest of this season in my opinion.
Placing Henrique on LTIR has simply given the Oilers more time to make these decisions. There has never truly been a time crunch on moving Mangiapane because sending Ingram and Howard down would be enough to get under the cap; but it would’ve been an issue if the decision was to move on from Pickard because Mangiapane would have to go with him to get the team back under the cap (assuming that Emberson, Kapanen, Janmark, and Roslovic aren’t in the conversation for potential players to be moved). I fully expect Mangiapane to get moved at some point; but there’s truly no rush to do it now, especially if they intend to remove Pickard from the roster.
For now, we get to watch the Oilers at the closest to full health they have been all season. Henrique hasn’t scored a goal since October 23, 2025, and he only has seven points since that game. He only has four points since November 1, 2025. Some would argue that his absence is addition by subtraction. Anyway, we will get a much better sense of what the Oilers’ potential actually is now that the team only has one injury.
