The Edmonton Oilers spent the summer turning over their blue line, and the result is a group that looks deeper than the one they rolled out last season. The names have changed, the contracts have changed, and the competition for jobs has changed, too. What hasn’t changed is the biggest question: has all that movement actually made the top end better?
Darnell Nurse is gone, Ryan Shea and Shakir Mukhamadullin are in, Connor Murphy is back for a full season, and Jake Walman’s new contract has kicked in. Edmonton now has enough NHL defencemen that a useful player is going to open the year outside the lineup.
That alone is a step forward. But the Oilers also shuffled plenty of pieces without making a clear leap at the top of the depth chart.
Mattias Ekholm remains the steady hand. There isn’t much mystery left with him. Since arriving from Nashville, he’s been Edmonton’s most reliable defensive defenceman, and he’s still one of the few blueliners responsible enough to skate beside Evan Bouchard.
Ekholm’s value is in the little things that matter most: defending the rush, getting pucks back, winning battles while Bouchard leans into the offensive side of his game. The concern is age.
He’s getting older, and there are only a few more years, if that, left in him. Shea and Mukhamadullin aren’t Ekholm yet, but this could be the season where they start taking steps toward becoming that kind of player down the road.
Bouchard, meanwhile, is still Bouchard - the kind of defenceman who can drive people crazy on Tuesday and win a game for Edmonton on Thursday. There aren’t many players like him around the league, and the points are the reason he makes $10.5 million a year. The Oilers have McDavid and Draisaitl up front, but Bouchard is the guy who extends that kind of impact to the back end.
Walman may be the player who determines how good this defence can really become. Edmonton is paying him $7 million per season to be a major piece, and the hope is that he gives the Oilers another defenceman who can push offense without becoming a problem away from the puck.
The talent is there, but the consistency isn’t always. He needs regular minutes, because the whole defence is easier to sort out when he’s in rhythm.
If he and Murphy can make it click, Edmonton could have two pairings it trusts against another team’s top lines. That’s a big if for someone just starting a seven-year deal.
Murphy is much simpler. He isn’t going to pile up points - not even close to 50 - and his job is clear: defend, kill penalties, block shots and work around the net.
He isn’t a dynamic skater, either. He’s also 33 and on a five-year contract, which is a conversation for another day.
For this season, though, pairing him with Walman makes sense.
Shea brings a different kind of gamble. Edmonton signed him for five years and $20 million, a $4 million AAV, after he put up 35 points in Pittsburgh, the best NHL season of his career.
The Oilers are betting he’s one of those players who found something late at 29. There’s also the risk they paid for the best year he’ll ever have, and the rest may not match it.
Mukhamadullin adds size and some long-term intrigue. He’s 24, stands 6-foot-4, has already played in the NHL, and gives Edmonton a defender with size who isn’t painfully slow. He still has room to grow into something more than a bottom-pair player, and that’s not something the Oilers have had much of lately.
Spencer Stastney fits in the depth role. He doesn’t force the coaching staff to rebuild its pairings every time there’s an injury, and no one should expect him to suddenly become a big offensive threat.
What he does have is usefulness. Edmonton needs a seventh and eighth defenceman too, and he can play when called on.
Ty Emberson is in a different spot than he was a year ago. He’s right-handed, still fairly young and inexpensive, and those traits were enough to keep him in the lineup most nights last season.
Not anymore. He’s been pushed down the chart by the new depth, and that’s really a good problem for Edmonton to have.
So is this group better than last season’s? In one sense, yes.
The Oilers lost Nurse, but they also got back $9.25 million a season and used it to add enough bodies to cover the hole. Last year’s defence could get thin fast when injuries hit.
This year, Stastney and Emberson could be waiting outside the top six, ready to step in. That kind of depth changes the shape of a season.
In Other News...
Oilers Fans Already Face One Big Mike Babcock Debate
Mike Babcocks arrival in Edmonton has already become a lightning rod, with the Oilers opting for a coach whose rsum is as polarizing as it is familiar. The concern around the hire is obvious: there is the baggage of past complaints about how he handled players, and there is the lack of recent coaching success to balance it out, which makes this a harder sell than a typical offseason move.
Still, the reaction has not been uniformly dismissive, and Sidney Crosbys perspective is part of why the conversation has stayed so layered. Crosby worked with Babcock at the Olympics and came away with a positive view of his structure and organization, a reminder that the coachs reputation is not built on criticism alone. For Oilers fans, though, the bigger question is whether that kind of order can matter enough now, and whether the next chapter in Edmonton ends up validating the bet or deepening the debate. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Suddenly Have A Real Camp Question Up Front
Curtis Lazar is still sitting in free agency nearly 10 weeks after the market opened, and that alone has kept his name in the conversation around Edmonton as camp approaches. After finishing a one-year deal with the Oilers, the veteran forward is suddenly part of a broader roster puzzle for a team that has added several forwards this summer and still wants to sort out the bottom six before the real work begins.
The timing matters because the Oilers are also dealing with some wing injuries heading into training camp, which has only sharpened the speculation about whether Lazar could be brought in on a professional tryout. His reputation for work ethic, faceoff ability and a physical edge makes him an easy fit to imagine in a depth role, and the question now is whether new coach Mike Babcock sees enough there to give him a closer look. [Read more 🡒]
McDavid Rumor Revives The Oilers Question Fans Can't Ignore
The latest round of Connor McDavid chatter has been more rumor than revelation, but it still managed to stir up a familiar nerve for Oilers fans. Michael Augello of The Hockey News clarified that his comments about McDavid one day playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs were rooted in another reporters theory and were meant to apply only if Toronto were a legitimate contender, which is the kind of caveat that can easily get lost once speculation starts to spread.
For Edmonton, the important part is the present tense: McDavid remains committed to the Oilers, and nothing in the discussion amounts to confirmed news. Still, the conversation only underscores how any future decision would be shaped by more than one factor, from team performance to the possibilities that could emerge if free agency ever becomes part of the picture, with Toronto hardly the only destination that would have a say. [Read more 🡒]