The clearest signal from the Oilers this summer isn’t that the roster is finished. It’s that it still feels very much in motion.
The chatter has already pointed in a few directions: Josh Brown as a real roster possibility, a push to add a top-six forward, and confirmation that McDavid and Draisaitl will spend time together at five-on-five. Taken together, those notes suggest a lineup that still has room to change before Mike Babcock settles on what he wants.
Brown’s name is the one that stands out most. On the right side, the Oilers already have Evan Bouchard, Connor Murphy and Ty Emberson, with Shakir Mukhamadullin next in line.
Beau Akey would seem to be another option after that, yet Brown is apparently positioned to jump ahead of Mukhamadullin and land as the No. 7 defender. That doesn’t look like a roster that’s locked in.
The same goes for the talk about adding a top-six forward. The current top six, as it stands, would include McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman and Savoie, with Podkolzin likely staying on the Draisaitl line.
That leaves the sixth spot, in this view, for either Ike Howard or Kasperi Kapanen. But if the Oilers bring in another skill forward, that would likely push Kapanen down to the third line and send Howard to Bakersfield.
There’s another way to build it, though. If Savoie is with McDavid and Hyman on the top line, and Podkolzin is with Draisaitl and Kapanen on the second, then a third unit of Howard-Nuge-Joseph could work as an offensive-zone line.
That would leave a fourth line of Dach-Dickinson-Frederic as the more aggressive shutdown group, even one that could see more minutes than the Nuge line in some games. The idea is there.
The question is whether Babcock will actually go that route.
The more likely plan, from what’s being gathered, is to cut back the five-on-five workload for 97 and 29 while still keeping them together often enough to matter. In that setup, Babcock would be looking to build a second line that can hold up on its own, which points to Savoie-McDavid-Draisaitl and Podkolzin-Nuge-Hyman.
That version comes with its own doubts. There’s a belief that Nuge and Hyman could both spend time on IR or play through injuries during the season. The concern is that the Oilers are leaning too heavily on players in their mid-30’s.
One possible lineup under that thinking would be Savoie-McDavid-Draisiatl, Podkolzin-Nuge-Hyman, Frederic-Dickinson-Kapanen and Janmark-Dach-Joseph. In that scenario, Howard and Josh Samanski would likely begin in the pressbox and the AHL, respectively.
The broader point is that the Oilers still look like a team waiting to reveal itself. The Brown possibility, the McDavid-Draisaitl pairing, and the push for another forward all point to a group that isn’t settled yet. The veterans may carry the load early, but there’s also a sense that the roster could start to shift quickly once the season begins.
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