February 2, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

By playing in his 50th game of the season on Saturday night, Edmonton Oilers defenceman Ty Emberson will avoid becoming a Group 6 unrestricted free agent and become a restricted free agent instead.

To be a Group 6 UFA, a player has to meet three conditions:

• They must be at least 25 years of age at the end of a contract
• They need to have played in less than 80 career NHL games
• They must have played three or more professional seasons (where they played at least eleven professional games as an eighteen or nineteen year old, or at least one professional game at 20 years old or older)

Emberson turns 25 years old on May 23, 2025. This is his fifth professional season. Entering this season, Emberson had only played 30 NHL games, all of which came with the San Jose Sharks last season. He has now played 80 NHL games, which means that he will not meet all three of the above conditions.

Typically, players are not eligible to become UFAs until they’re 27 years old. The Group 6 UFA designation allows players that aren’t getting opportunities with the NHL clubs to find another team to play for, whether it be in the NHL or another league.

Being an RFA means that the organization has control of the player. When an RFA’s contract expires, the team that holds the player’s rights must extend a qualifying offer to the player to retain those rights. The player can sign the qualifying offer, or choose to negotiate a better contract.

If a team does not wish to retain the player’s rights, then they can choose not to qualify the player, at which point the player would become a UFA.

Avoiding Group 6 UFA status doesn’t necessarily mean that Emberson is guaranteed an NHL job next year, but the Oilers have given him a big opportunity this season. He’s played in all but two of the Oilers’ games so far this season. Giving Emberson enough games to make him an RFA means that the Oilers want to at least have the option to retain his rights going forward.

That seems like a certainty given the acquisition cost (Cody Ceci and a 2025 3rd round pick) and the fact that Emberson has carved out a role for himself with the Oilers.

Related: Oilers trade Ceci to the Sharks

Emberson has been a mainstay on the third pairing. He has played most of his time with Brett Kulak (424:34). When Kulak has played with Darnell Nurse, whoever Nurse’s regular partner is (whether it’s Troy Stecher or Josh Brown) has played with Emberson. 

It’s clear he’s being sheltered much more than he was with the Sharks. According to PuckIQ, Emberson spent 32% of his five-on-five ice time against elite competition last season. That is down to 25.4% this season. Emberson has played 41.9% of his ice time against low level competition this season.

His 45.3% five-on-five goal share (24-29) doesn’t paint the most stunning picture of his play. The underlying numbers suggest that he’s playing fairly well. Emberson’s DFF% against all levels of competition is 54.2%, his xGF% is 53.15%, and his scoring chances against per 60 rate relative to his teammates is -0.19. He’s doing more than just holding his own out there.

Related: O’Reilly and Emberson moves have Parkatti’s fingerprints all over them

He’s also found his way onto the top penalty killing pairing alongside Mattias Ekholm. Emberson is second on the team in shorthanded ice time (1:48 per game). The coaching staff has clearly put a lot of trust in Emberson’s penalty killing ability. He’s rewarded them with solid play. His xGF% relative to his teammates on the PK is -3.96. That’s a much better figure than Kulak (8.86) and Darnell Nurse (0.70), the other regular penalty killing pairing. Emberson is only bested by Ekholm (-8.50) among regular Oilers PK defencemen in this metric.

It was always unrealistic to expect Emberson to match his offensive output from last season (10 points in 30 games). He’s got nine points in his 50 games this season. That includes a recent stretch where he got four points in eight games. Emberson has not scored a goal yet this season, but it will come if he keeps firing the puck on net.

The acquisition price for Emberson was fairly steep when you consider that the Oilers gave up a second pairing defenceman and a third round pick for a younger third pairing defenceman. The $2.3 million in cap savings was a significant return for the Oilers here as well though. He had a bit of a slow start, but he’s become more comfortable as the season has gone along. Emberson has provided decent value for the Oilers at $950k, and he could continue to provide value for the Oilers for many years to come.

Related: The Ceci trade was more about Emberson than we realize