May 1, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg

29 + 2 = $12.1 million. Okay, I’m not a numbers guy. I realize that equation is inaccurate; but it truly describes the 2025-26 season for the Edmonton Oilers.

The new contracts belonging to Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard kicked in this season. Draisaitl’s cap hit rose from $8.5 million to $14 million, which equates to a $5.5 million raise. Bouchard’s cap hit rose from $3.9 million to $10.5 million, which equates to a $6.6 million raise. Their raises added together equal $12.1 million.

That was significant because the NHL’s salary cap rose from $88 million to $95.5 million for the 2025-26 season. That $7.5 million jump was far less than the $12.1 million raises that went to Draisaitl and Bouchard.

I don’t fault Oilers GM Stan Bowman for signing those deals. Those are two important core players that are worth every cent of those contracts in my opinion. Draisaitl still finished top ten in league scoring despite missing the last four weeks of the regular season with a knee injury, and Bouchard led all NHL defencemen in points. Their extensions were just the cost of doing business.

The reality is that the Oilers had to shed salary cap to become cap compliant. They did so by trading Evander Kane and Viktor Arvidsson. That reality also meant having to move on from free agents such as Corey Perry and Connor Brown.

It also meant bargain hunting on July 1. The Oilers negotiated to get Andrew Mangiapane to Edmonton on a two-year deal with a $3.6 million AAV with hopes that he could rebound from a down season with the Washington Capitals.

It also necessitated the team bringing in younger and cheaper players. They made a spot for rookie Matt Savoie. Many prospects got NHL opportunities this season. Ike Howard was the biggest summer splash. He got more NHL opportunities than any other Oilers prospect, but it was clear that he needed more AHL time. Alec Regula made the team out of camp, but suffered a concussion in the second game of the season and could never regain full form. Josh Samanski ended up factoring into the playoff roster. Quinn Hutson, Connor Clattenburg, and Roby Jarventie also got NHL opportunities this season.

The result was a weaker and less experienced roster than what the Oilers went to the Stanley Cup Final with in 2025. That played out from the moment the puck dropped on the Oilers season. The Oilers opened the season by signing Jack Roslovic during the second period of their first game, which saw them blow a third period lead and lose to the Calgary Flames in a shootout.

Related: Oilers sign Roslovic

The first two months of the season felt like a train wreck. The Oilers started 2-3-1 and couldn’t get any kind of momentum going. They finished October at 5-4-3. Their record in November was 6-6-3, but it felt so much worse than that. 

The Oilers didn’t win a game in regulation in November until the 22nd. The first eight days of November were awful. After beating the Chicago Blackhawks in overtime on November 1, the Oilers lost their next three games, culminated by an embarrassing 9-1 thumping at home at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche. They won a wild affair with the Columbus Blue Jackets after head coach Kris Knoblauch was basically forced to call out Trent Frederic in the media. Frederic fought Mathieu Olivier, the Oilers won, and everyone moved on. They won three of the next four games in overtime, then proceeded to lose four of their next five games. The fourth loss in that span was another embarrassing home loss, this time 8-3 to the Dallas Stars.

It was a mess in Edmonton then. The Oilers couldn’t keep the puck out of their net, they couldn’t score, and the fans were angry. Knoblauch was being roasted over the coals by the fans online, and he was being questioned by the media. I felt like I was constantly repeating myself writing about what was going wrong for the Oilers because it was the same old story over and over again. He announced that he would be making some tactical changes in December.

Related: Oilers 5v5 issues fall more on the players than the coach

Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard took the team to consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, but the Oilers just couldn’t get over the finish line with them. I personally don’t think goaltending was the issue in either Stanley Cup Final series loss, but it was one of many things that wasn’t good enough in the 2025 series.

Once the dust settled, Bowman more than hinted that the decision was made to move on from Skinner after last summer, but the right target didn’t present itself in the summer in his estimation. He had his eyes on Tristan Jarry; but he wanted to see if his being waived and sent to the minors during the 2024-25 season was a blip on the radar and if Jarry could recover at the start of this season. In the meantime, Skinner and Pickard got a chance to see if they could figure it out under new goalie coach Peter Aubry. 

The goaltending situation with Skinner and Pickard became so dire that it needed to be addressed. Jarry had a solid start to his season with the Pittsburgh Penguins, so Bowman pulled the trigger and sent Skinner and Brett Kulak to the Penguins for Jarry and prospect Sam Poulin. It was a welcome change of scenery for both men. Skinner was allegedly dealing with incredibly disrespectful and classless behaviour from Oilers fans online, and Jarry was excited to come to Edmonton, where he won a Memorial Cup as a junior player.

As it turned out, Jarry got injured during his third start with the Oilers and never found his game again afterwards. Bowman had traded for Connor Ingram during training camp. Ingram started in the AHL, but got recalled after Jarry got hurt. He took the crease from Jarry and Pickard. Pickard eventually got waived and sent to the AHL, and Jarry was relegated to the backup role.

Related: Jarry for Skinner is a lateral move for the Oilers

The Oilers’ play stabilized a little bit after the goaltending changes, but they were still frustratingly inconsistent. They didn’t have their first three-game win streak until January 29. Two of those were overtime wins, so they didn’t get their streak convincingly.

They continued plodding along until the Olympic break. Knoblauch made tactical changes for the second time over the course of the season. The Oilers also brought Paul Coffey back to the bench. Coffey left his assistant coaching position last summer, but found himself back on the bench in late February. The messaging from the Oilers was that it was Knoblauch’s idea to bring Coffey back, but I’m not buying that for a second. The special advisor to the owner always seems to get pushed closer to the team when there’s trouble afoot, and that was the case again here. There was speculation that people inside the organization weren’t happy with the decision. Knoblauch chose to have Mark Stuart run the defence this summer, but I’m supposed to believe that he opted to bring the special advisor to the owner back on the bench to do Stuart’s job in February? The situation doesn’t pass the smell test.

Related: Coffey to the rescue again

That move was a couple of weeks before the trade deadline. Their trade deadline plan was clear: find a way to keep the puck out of the net. They could score, but they couldn’t defend. So, they set out to find defensive reinforcements.

The Mangiapane experiment was a total disaster. The player indicated that he would be open to a move to a place where he would get more opportunity than he was getting with the Oilers. He thought he was worthy of a top six spot, but that’s actually hilarious to me. He’s dreaming if he thinks he’s a top six forward. After that information got out in January, Mangiapane found himself in the pressbox on many nights.

Tom gives us the latest update on Mangiapane👀

Presented by @capitalgmcbuick @TomGazzola @HelloHockeyShow pic.twitter.com/WkjZwiO2mg

— Edmonton Sports Talk (@yegsportstalk) December 30, 2025

The Oilers ended up packaging Mangiapane and a first round pick to the Blackhawks for shutdown centre Jason Dickinson and rookie winger Colton Dach. The first round pick ended up being the cost to move the extra year of Mangiapane’s deal and for 50% retention on Dickinson. The addition of Dach moved the deal from atrocious to almost palatable in my opinion. Bowman’s justification for spending the 2027 first round pick in that deal was that moving Mangiapane in a separate deal would’ve cost the Oilers more total assets.

The plan was to utilize Dickinson as a third line centre. Dickinson got a lot of the tough minutes against elite competition with the Blackhawks. Dickinson is a tremendous defender, but that combined with his total lack of offence adds up to a net negative on the scoresheet. He was outscored 5-10 (33.33%) in the regular season. They got what they wanted out of him in the playoffs (3-1, 75%), but it didn’t help in the end. It was always a losing strategy in my opinion. I like Dickinson as a 4C, but he doesn’t have enough offensive production to be a 3C.

The Oilers also got shutdown defender Connor Murphy from the Blackhawks in exchange for a 2028 second round pick. That ended up being a successful acquisition as he was able to bring the goals against down on the second pairing alongside Darnell Nurse. Finding a suitable partner for Nurse has been a challenge over the years, and Murphy was a rare solid one for Nurse.

Related: 2026 Oilers Trade Deadline Wrap

The Oilers improved down the stretch. They even rattled off a five-game winning streak near the end. Ultimately, injuries to Draisaitl, Dickinson, and Zach Hyman derailed the Oilers’ bid for a Pacific Division crown. They didn’t deserve it based on their play over the course of the season, but they got a bit cold down the stretch, and the Vegas Golden Knights got hot after making a late season coaching change.

The Oilers ran into a young, fast, and hungry Anaheim Ducks team in the first round of the playoffs. The Ducks were the superior team, and they deservedly won the series.

Related: Series Wrap: Oilers vs Ducks 2026

Draisaitl, Dickinson, and Hyman entered the series at less than 100%. They lost Adam Henrique in Game 1. Connor McDavid hurt his ankle in Game 1 as well, which didn’t help anything. Injuries aren’t an excuse, but the reality is that they’re human beings and injuries impact physical performance.

Speaking of them being human beings, my honest opinion is that the Oilers’ core players were emotionally exhausted. They will tell you that they felt fine physically aside from the injuries that we’ll hear about in the coming days. As highly trained professional athletes, they always want to be on the ice and they take care of themselves well enough to handle extreme amounts of physical activity.

I made sure to say “emotionally” exhausted for a reason though. This team has played more hockey games than any other team in the last three years, including the Florida Panthers. Sure, there’s a physical toll that comes with that; but you don’t play that many games without going on deep runs. 

The two runs to the Stanley Cup Final were emotionally exhausting. Think about all that they have been through. They had the drama of the bad start and the coaching change in 2023-24 followed by the sixteen-game winning streak in the regular season. Then they had a heated seven-game roller coaster of a series with the Vancouver Canucks. Then they made their first Stanley Cup Final only to fall behind 0-3. Then they came back to force a Game 7 which they lost 2-1 in heart breaking fashion. That wasn’t just any Game 7 loss. The extra ups and downs that preceded it made the disappointment hurt so much more, and it took so much more out of them emotionally.

Then they went through another grind of a regular season and got back to the Stanley Cup Final only to lose to the Panthers again.

I think about McDavid’s experience specifically here as well. He had his bachelor party two weeks after the Game 7 loss, and he got married later that summer. That emotional roller coaster of a playoff run and a wedding in the same summer is a lot. Then he had the 4 Nations experience and another Cup run in 2025, and a loss in the gold medal game at the 2026 Olympics. That’s an incredible amount of emotional variation at either end of the spectrum in two short calendar years.

McDavid spoke openly about the fact that the regular season has become a mental grind for him and the Oilers on multiple occassions, including in his Player’s Tribune post. Part of that is because they know that the games mean so much more in the spring. Part of that is because he was simply emotionally exhausted from his last two years.

I honestly even feel that as a fan. I’m actually relieved that I don’t have to stress about my team playing every other night for the next two months. I want my team to win more than anything, but we as fans have been through a lot of disappointment over the last couple of years. That’s even more true if you’re a Toronto Blue Jays fan as well as an Oilers fan. I’m welcoming the break. I know there are several other fans that feel this way as well from talking to people and reading things online since the series ended.

Another feeling that seems to be resonating through the fanbase is a lack of disappointment over this loss. Sure, I’m sad and disappointed that the Oilers lost in the first round, especially since the only team that could beat them in the last two years didn’t make the playoffs; but my expectations were always low for this year’s Oilers because 29 + 2 = $12.1 million. It was always a transitional year for the Oilers as the new contract structure takes shape and Bowman puts his stamp on the roster.

There are no more excuses over the next two years though. The cap will spike significantly in each of the next two summers, and McDavid has committed two more years to the Oilers at a team friendly rate. Bowman and the Oilers have cap space to work with to build a championship roster around the existing core. This was a transitional year, but the expectations go right back up to “Cup or bust” in each of the next two seasons.