June 30, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg

As of Tuesday evening, the Oilers’ needs on defence hinge upon Darnell Nurse’s trade status. If he ends up staying with the Oilers, they will only need to sign a seventh defenceman. That could be RFA Spencer Stastney, whom the Oilers made a qualifying offer to along with Colton Dach, Roby Jarventie, and Owen Michaels on Monday. Of those RFAs, I expect Dach to be on the roster and I’m not certain about Stastney. It will depend on his asking price. If Nurse gets traded and a third pairing left defenceman isn’t a part of the return, then the Oilers will need to sign one.

(Happy birthday to the Heavy Hockey Network’s most prolific video content producer and most avid Ike Howard fan, Patrick Phillips! (@OilersFanaticYT))

The Oilers definitely need a backup goaltender and a middle six winger. If they happen to get a surplus of cap space after trading Nurse, then they could be in a position to pursue a true top six winger. They will also need an extra depth forward to round out their roster, which could be any number of players as long as the AAV is below $1 million. 

PuckPedia says the Oilers have $7,415,834 to sign Stastney, Dach, a backup goaltender, a middle six winger, and a depth forward. Ike Howard is included in that figure, but his $972,500 cap hit could easily be waived or traded out to create more cap space if he isn’t firmly in the team’s plans this coming season.

Let’s start with what we know they need first. The Oilers have been linked to a former Chicago Blackhawks teammate of Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson’s, Ilya Mikheyev, as a potential free agent target. Mikheyev’s last contract carried an AAV of $4.75 million. He has speed, produces more offence than Dickinson, and is highly regarded defensively. He was also a part of a formidable penalty killing group with Murphy and Dickinson last season.

There were 150 forwards with AAVs equal to or greater than Mikheyev’s $4.75 million last season according to PuckPedia. Mikheyev ranked tied for 200th in 5v5 points/60 last season (1.59) among NHL forwards that played at least 500 five-on-five minutes according to Natural Stat Trick. That was a four-year contract. He was tied for 201st in that metric in 2024-25 (1.54), tied for 118th in 2023-24 (1.9), and tied for 37th in 2022-23 (2.42). His production decreased in the latter half of the contract, but the rising cap compensated for that. It was never a horrible contract.

In case you missed it, I wrote a piece that outlines what fair expectations for rising AAVs for NHL UFAs are in this rising cap environment. I arrived at a 37% projected cap increase over the next five years, which should be the percenatge that a player’s AAV rises by without factoring in performance and future expectations.

Related: NHL UFA contract valuation epxectations in the rising cap environment

Adding the 37% to account for the rising cap over the next five seasons to Mikheyev’s previous $4.75 million AAV ($6,507,500) would be a bad contract to give a 31-year old. If Bowman can get Mikheyev done for something close to a $5 million AAV as has been suggested repeatedly in recent reports, it will be a decent contract.

I wouldn’t have thought that if the cap wasn’t going up though because Mikheyev is 31 years old like Dickinson and the Oilers would be buying the start of his decline at some point in his contract (depending on the term obviously). Whether Mikheyev is the right fit for the Oilers roster or not is up for debate, but a $5 million AAV for Mikheyev wouldn’t be bad at all. However, that wouldn’t leave much room for the other roster spots to be filled barring a Nurse trade.

Honestly, the forwards in this free agent class are less than inspiring. I’m not even going to talk about Alex Ovechkin since he’s not a realistic option. There are some older big names of yesteryear that would be unlikely to sign here like Patrick Kane, Vladimir Tarasenko, Mats Zuccarello, Anders Lee, David Perron, and Jaden Schwartz available. I would pass on Perron and Schwartz, but I’d be open to short-term deals with any of the others.

Anthony Mantha, Mason Marchment, Michael Bunting, and Mattias Maccelli are the other UFA top six wingers out there. Mantha exploded last season after several years of struggle, and Marchment and Bunting are more like middle-six guys in my view. I wouldn’t overpay for them. Maccelli has a recent track record of top six production, but he’s small and comes with a level of risk that I don’t see the need to take at this juncture. He will have switched teams twice in the last two years once he signs a new contract for a reason. I don’t fully understand that reason, but there’s a reason.

I would love it if the Oilers were to sign Mavrik Bourque to an offer sheet. The Dallas Stars are in a bit of a cap pinch and a contract dispute with Jason Robertson. The Oilers could make him an offer of up to $4,775,666 with the compensation being the Oilers’ 2027 second round pick should the Stars decline to match the offer. That would be a small price to pay for a 24-year old right-handed winger that can also play centre coming off a 20-goal, 41-point season. I’m not certain that the Stars would be in a position to match that offer.

The trade market is the way to go for top six forwards though. If there’s any chance that Owen Tippett is available, then the Oilers need to make that happen. He’s the perfect stylistic fit in my opinion. He’s got size, speed, forechecking ability, and he can fill the net. If any of Alexis Lafrenière, Filip Forsberg, or Alex DeBrincat become available for any reasons, then the Oilers should inquire. Other names could become available prior to the trade deadline as well. The way to be in a position to pounce if and when any of these players become available is to not spend on a top six scoring winger in free agency.

Gauging value in the UFA goaltending market this summer will be interesting. Older goaltenders including Sergei Bobrovsky, Frederik Andersen, Petr Mrazek, and Cam Talbot are likely to take pay cuts from their previous AAVs. Bobrovsky is out of the Oilers’ price range barring a Nurse trade freeing up more cap space. Andersen is a possibility if the Carolina Hurricanes decide to make Brandon Bussi their full-time starter after his Stanley Cup winning performance and they decide to go younger, cheaper, and healthier at the backup position. I don’t see Talbot coming back to the Oilers, and I don’t view Mrazek as a viable option.

Goaltenders in their prime years such as Connor Ingram, Daniil Tarasov, Vitek Vanecek, Stuart Skinner, and Eric Comrie are likely to get raises over their previous AAVs whether their play merited it or not because of the rising cap. Skinner obviously isn’t coming back.  Ingram, whose previous AAV was $1.95 million, likely priced himself out of the Oilers’ budget with his play last season. I would have time for Tarasov or Vanecek if their asking prices are $2 million or below. 33-year old David Rittich could also be another reasonable bet on a short-term deal.

I’d prefer to see the Oilers go after a better option via trade though. I’m not convinced that Elvis Merzlikins is the right move. I’d be more apt to target Michael DiPietro, the AHL’s best goaltender last season, than Merzlikins.

I realize that none of the options that I just listed are all that exciting. That’s going to be disappointing for a lot of Oilers fans given the fact that many are viewing this as the most important offseason in franchise history. I for one am not upset at the prospect of not spending much if anything at all in free agency, especially given the Oilers’ recent track record with significant free agent signings.

The thing the Oilers can’t screw up is the Nurse trade though. They need to get a fair to good return for him. They also need to find a way to trade for a scoring winger at some point before September 2027. Whatever happens this free agency period will be forgiveable if the Oilers don’t put themselves in a position where they can’t trade for a top six winger at some point before September 2027.