April 11, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg

When the Edmonton Oilers originally acquired Trent Frederic from the Boston Bruins on March 4, 2025, it was believed that he would only be out for a week or two longer with his high ankle sprain. Frederic did not make his Oilers debut until April 5, which was a month and a day after the trade.

Related: Oilers acquire Frederic

Frederic is just one of many Oilers that either are injured or that have been injured in recent weeks. Frederic was inserted into the lineup for a game against the Los Angeles Kings that essentially decided which of the two likely first round opponents would have home ice advantage in that series. It was either play Frederic or play short-handed for that important game. 

His first shift lasted all of six seconds. Frederic started the game, laid a hit on Kings defenceman Brandt Clarke by the bench, and immediately got off the ice. He only played 7:10 in the game. Apparently he re-aggravated that ankle injury, presumably while delivering that hit in his first shift.

The original update from the team was that Frederic would not be available until the playoffs. While that’s still true, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch’s words on Friday indicated that he’s not certain when Frederic will be ready. “We hope to get him in Game 1, maybe it’s Game 2; but that’s kind of the timeline we’re looking at.”

The wait keeps getting longer and longer. High ankle sprains are tricky. They take a long time to heal. There was always an element of risk in acquiring a player recovering from a high ankle sprain. That risk is greater when that player is an impending unrestricted free agent. The risk grows even more when you include the fact that the acquisition cost was expensive AND they paid two teams to retain salary on Frederic.

The risk is that all you get for a second round pick (the one acquired for not matching an offer sheet on a former first rounder that broke out this season), a fourth round pick, and two prospects (one of which was highly unlikely to sign a contract with the Oilers) is 7:10 of regular season ice time from the player before limping into a playoff series on a bad ankle.

Oilers GM Stan Bowman clearly likes Frederic, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken that kind of risk. Many Oilers fans were excited about Frederic because of his annoying and physical style of play. Frederic scored seventeen goals two seasons ago, and eighteen goals last season in a forty-point campaign. He can get under the opponent’s skin, he can hit, AND he can score.

However, he had eight goals and fifteen points in 57 games this season. According to Natural Stat Trick, his five-on-five points per 60 has decreased from 2.11 last season to 1.03 this season. Any thoughts that he would or will suddenly return to last season’s level of production on a new team are delusional in my opinion. It takes time to gel with a new team, and he will be returning during the playoffs where the hockey is faster and more intense.

I would have been more accepting of the risk and the acquisition cost if he was still producing at his peak level, but he isn’t. The benefit of Frederic that we know we’ll get is his abrasive style, which is something that I hold in lower value than a lot of other people do. It’s a “nice to have” that might indirectly have an impact on winning, but none of that matters if the player can’t produce offence or play reliable defence. It’s a skillset that has value, but far less value than what the Oilers paid for it in this instance. I’ll make my peace with it if Frederic signs with the Oilers this summer, but it was always an expensive risk. It’s a risk that has blown up in the Oilers’ faces up to this point.

It’s fair to question the decision to play Frederic in that game against the Kings. The team had said that they wanted to play Frederic in the following game against the Anaheim Ducks, but the injuries to other players put them in a tough position. The way it turned out, they were basically playing a man short with Frederic only playing 7:10 in that game. 

They were without Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Mattias Ekholm, John Klingberg, and Stuart Skinner for that game. That left them with eleven forwards available without Frederic. They didn’t have enough cap space to call anyone up to round out the roster, and they needed to play a game short-handed before being able to make an emergency recall. The choice was to risk injury aggravation with Frederic, or play an important game short-handed. They chose to take the risk with Frederic. I understand the decision, but it was a risk. Being healthy entering the playoffs is more important than home-ice advantage in my opinion, and I don’t think Frederic is enough of a difference maker to have changed the result of that game (a 3-0 win for the Kings) even at full health.

Perhaps I’m being unfair to Frederic since we haven’t seen him play at full health yet. My gripe is more with Oilers management than with Fredric himself. I’m going to leave room for my opinion to be swayed because I don’t know what the playoffs will bring.

The other reason that I’ll leave room for my opinion to be swayed is because while Frederic went -2 and got hurt in his 7:10 of ice time in that game against the Kings, he found a way to make a positive impact. Drew Doughty left that game with 7:36 left in the third period because of a run-in with Frederic, and he hasn’t played since. Doughty is expected to be back for the playoffs, but he likely won’t be at 100%. If that ends up being a factor in a first round series against the Kings, then Frederic will have made a significant impact.

In other Oilers injury news, Mattias Ekholm will return in Friday night’s game against the San Jose Sharks. Ekholm has missed the last seven games due an undisclosed injury (which is believed to be a core injury). That means that Can Dineen, who was recalled on an emergency basis, will not play. Stuart Skinner will also return to the lineup, but he will back up Calvin Pickard. Skinner is expected to play one of the games in the back-to-back on Sunday and Monday as well as the last game of the season against the Sharks.

Leon Draisaitl is expected to return before the playoffs, but the team did not announce a formal return date. Knoblauch also would not give a specific timeline on Evander Kane’s return when asked if he would be ready for Game 1, but he did say that he’s close.