Isaac Howard’s rough start in Edmonton is starting to look a lot like a familiar cautionary tale.
The comparison that keeps surfacing is Shane Wright, whose path with the Seattle Kraken went from can’t-miss prospect to a messy, stop-start stint that never really took hold. Wright was once viewed as the likely No. 1 pick by the Montreal Canadiens after a huge 2021-22 OHL season with the Kingston Frontenacs, when he put up 94 points and helped the club win 41 of 68 regular-season games before reaching the second round of the playoffs. Instead, Juraj Slafkovsky went first, Simon Nemec went second to the New Jersey Devils, Logan Cooley went third to the Arizona Coyotes, and Wright landed at No. 4 with Seattle.
From there, the slide was steady. Some pointed to the pandemic.
Others pointed to his interviews with NHL teams. Others believed his draft stock simply wasn’t as strong as the point total suggested.
Wright was later dealt from Kingston to the Windsor Spitfires, then bounced between the OHL, Coachella Valley, and the NHL over the next few years. In his first two seasons, he played only 16 games and managed seven points.
Even after another 167 games with the Kraken, Wright’s total output reached just 75 points, and Seattle eventually moved him to the Nashville Predators for Matthew Wood. Wood had just finished his first full NHL season, scoring 17 goals and adding 13 assists in 71 games during the 2025-26 campaign. Wright has three points in 14 games to begin this season.
Howard’s situation is not identical, but the parallels are hard to ignore. He didn’t arrive with the same draft hype Wright carried, but the early returns in Edmonton have been underwhelming.
After three NCAA seasons, Howard finally got a meaningful shot with the Oilers, yet he produced only five points in 29 games. Now, in what many expected to be a breakout stretch, he has three points in 14 games, which is the second-lowest total among Oilers who have appeared in at least 10 of the team’s first 15 games.
The difference is that Wright’s exit from Seattle came after years of struggling to establish himself as a central piece on a team that didn’t have much star power to lean on. Howard, by contrast, is trying to carve out a role on an Edmonton roster loaded with four superstars. Still, the underlying issue is the same: he hasn’t yet made the kind of imprint that forces a team to build around him.
Seattle’s roster changes only made Wright’s situation more crowded, with Bobby McMann arriving via trade from the Toronto Maple Leafs and Mackie Samoskevich also coming in through a trade. Both are viewed as legitimate middle-six or depth options, and Wright’s inability to separate himself from that type of competition made his path even tougher.
That is the warning sign for Edmonton now. Trading a young prospect this early is never ideal, and Howard’s current injury means any real trade talk can wait.
But the question is still there. If he can’t turn this around, how long does his future in Edmonton really last?
For now, the Oilers don’t need to rush to a decision. But Wright’s story is sitting right there as a reminder of how quickly a promising young player can slip from “future piece” to expendable if the fit never clicks.
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