The Oilers’ crease has been messy for a while, but Devon Levi is giving them something they haven’t had much of lately: a reason to believe.
At 24, Levi has stepped into Edmonton and, at least through the first stretch of the 2026-27 season, made himself part of the conversation. The results haven’t been spotless, but they’ve been encouraging enough to shift the mood around a position that has been bleak for some time.
Right now, Edmonton is working with a tandem that includes Levi and veteran Tristan Jarry, while Frederik Andersen sits out injured. Andersen, 36, signed a one-year deal in the summer worth $1 million in base salary and up to $1.8 million more in performance bonuses. He arrived after winning a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes last year, and he had hoped to chase another one with the Oilers.
For now, though, the Danish goalie is one of several Edmonton players on the injured list early in the season. There is no clear timetable for his return, only the expectation that it won’t be soon.
That leaves Levi and Jarry to split the workload, and head coach Mike Babcock has leaned toward riding the hot hand. Through four games, Levi has gotten three starts to Jarry’s one, and Babcock has said Jarry will be back in the mix against the San Jose Sharks.
Jarry’s lone appearance this season was rough. He went 0-0-1 after an overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks, stopping 17 of 23 shots.
That gives him a .739 save percentage and a 5.85 goals-against average. It also follows a difficult run with Edmonton last season, when he posted a 9-6-2 record, a 3.86 GAA and a .858 save percentage in 16 starts.
Levi, meanwhile, has looked much steadier. He’s 3-0-0 with a .868 save percentage and a 3.35 GAA. Those numbers are weighed down by his first start of the season, when he finished with a .682 save percentage, but he’s been much sharper since then, turning in marks of .950 and .935.
He’s also done it against some real competition. Levi has already helped Edmonton beat the Seattle Kraken and the Anaheim Ducks, with the Ducks the team that knocked the Oilers out of the playoffs last spring.
That matters. Those are the kinds of games that tell you whether a goalie can settle in when the pressure is real.
There’s been plenty of belief around Levi since his arrival, and Edmonton didn’t have to give up much to get him. General manager Stan Bowman acquired him from the Buffalo Sabres along with a 2028 seventh-round pick in exchange for a 2028 third-round pick.
It was a low-cost move that brought a lot of buzz with it, and Bowman has made clear what he wants to see. Speaking about Levi, he said, "I think this opportunity is there, and we want him to push and show us he's the guy.” So far, Levi has given the Oilers a strong early answer.
In Other News...
Evan Bouchard Is Forcing A Big Oilers Debate Early
Evan Bouchard has wasted no time putting himself at the center of the Oilers early-season conversation. Through four games, the defenseman has six goals and 11 points, leading all blueliners in scoring and sitting second on the team in points behind Connor McDavid. He has also been logging a heavy workload while helping drive Edmontons offense, another sign of how much the Oilers are leaning on him right now.
The numbers have been impossible to ignore, and they have naturally reopened a familiar debate around Bouchards game. His offensive impact is obvious, but his defensive play remains the part of the conversation that keeps the Norris Trophy discussion from becoming straightforward. For Edmonton, the question is less about whether he has been one of the NHLs most productive defensemen so far and more about how far that production can carry him if the rest of the profile does not fully match. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers May Have Found More Than Depth In This Trade
The Oilers latest swap with Pittsburgh was framed as a depth move on paper, with Spencer Stastney going the other way and Filip Hallander coming back to Edmonton. But the more interesting part of the deal is what Hallander brings beyond simple roster insulation. He is a younger center who has done most of his growing up in the Swedish Hockey League, where his play has stood out enough to earn international attention, and he arrives with a profile that suggests there may be more here than a routine bottom-six addition.
Hallander has also given Edmonton a small but encouraging offensive glimpse in limited NHL usage this season, which only adds to the intrigue around how the Oilers might use him while injuries continue to test their forward depth. Stastneys metrics were solid but unspectacular, so the trade could end up being judged less by what Edmonton gave up than by whether Hallander can translate his strong track record into a larger role. For a team that needs reliable minutes now, the possibility of uncovering a useful center along the way makes the deal worth watching. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers About To Face A Strange New Reality Against A Familiar Face
A familiar face is about to make the matchup feel a little stranger. Darnell Nurse will see the Oilers from the opposite bench for the first time after spending the first stretch of his NHL career in Edmonton, a run that made him one of the most recognizable players in the room and around the organization. Even with the change of scenery, the matchup still carries the kind of layered emotion that comes with facing a team a player knows as well as Nurse knows this one.
The timing adds another wrinkle for Edmonton, where the game will also come with a quiet shift in the franchise record book. Nurse has been part of so many Oilers milestones over the years, but this meeting creates a new one in the background as Connor McDavid moves past him on the clubs all-time games played list. It is the sort of detail that underscores how much history has already been built, and how quickly a new chapter can alter the old one. [Read more 🡒]