The Edmonton Oilers have some trimming to do before the season begins, and the numbers leave them with a clear sorting job.
Right now, Edmonton is carrying 29 players, which puts the club six over the limit, according to Puckpedia’s latest waiver watch. Every team has to get compliant by Sept. 28 at 3:00 PM MT, with the 2026-27 National Hockey League season set to open the next day.
That means the Oilers are staring at three buckets: players who are likely to be waived, players sitting on the bubble, and players who are exempt.
Puckpedia’s list of likely waiver candidates includes six names: Max Jones, Riley Stillman, Josh Brown, Matt Tomkins, Eduards Tralmaks, and Atro Leppänen. Everyone on that group except Brown carries the minimum cap hit of $850,000. Brown is in the final season of a three-year contract with an annual cap hit of $1 million.
Brown has already seen time in Edmonton. He played 10 regular-season games and one playoff game in 2024-25, then spent all of 2025-26 with the Bakersfield Condors, where he posted two goals and 13 points in 57 games. The right-shot defenceman brings physicality, but he sits well down the depth chart.
Stillman is in a similar spot. The 28-year-old dressed for four games with the Oilers last season, while the bulk of his 2025-26 campaign came in Bakersfield. In 51 games with the Condors, he scored three goals and 18 points, then added two goals in three playoff appearances.
Jones looks like the kind of player Edmonton could still use if he gets through waivers. He’s a high-energy bottom-six forward with some scoring history, and the Oilers picked him up before the 2025 trade deadline.
Last season, he put up three goals and five points in 21 games for Edmonton. If he stays in the organization, he should get another shot at some point.
Tralmaks is the other forward on the likely-to-be-waived list. The 29-year-old Latvian winger was signed this past off-season after a productive AHL year, when he scored 26 goals and 42 points in 64 games while also throwing his weight around. He has not made his NHL debut yet, though that could change this season.
Leppänen is another name worth watching. The Finnish defenceman came off a big year in SM-Liiga, where he scored 21 goals and 63 points in 60 games, which helped prompt Edmonton to sign him.
He followed that up with 11 goals and 38 points in 53 games for Bakersfield last season. Like Tralmaks, he could end up seeing NHL action this year.
Tomkins rounds out the group. The 32-year-old goaltender is entering his second season in the organization after posting a .904 save percentage and 2.98 goals-against average in 42 games with the Condors last season. If he does end up on waivers, the Oilers may be able to absorb that loss, given the number of goaltending prospects in the system who need minutes.
Puckpedia’s bubble list features five more Oilers: Alex Formenton, Colton Dach, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Spencer Stastney, and Ty Emberson.
Three of those five are defencemen, which tells you where Edmonton’s roster crunch is most severe. Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Jake Walman, Connor Murphy, and Ryan Shea are all expected to be regulars on the back end, leaving only one opening for four more defencemen, including the injured Alec Regula.
Stastney arrived during the 2025-26 season and played 36 games for the Oilers, scoring one goal. Before the move, the left-shot defenceman had one goal and nine points in 30 games with the Nashville Predators, though he was frequently a healthy scratch late in the year.
Emberson looks safer. Once Murphy was acquired and Walman returned, Edmonton leaned on Emberson as its sixth defenceman.
He played 72 games, scored two goals and 12 points, and added one assist in six playoff games. Puckpedia has him as a waiver candidate, but it appears the spot is his to lose.
Mukhamadullin also landed in Edmonton this offseason, coming over from the San Jose Sharks for Darnell Nurse. The 24-year-old Russian scored five goals and 12 points in 50 games with San Jose last season and can play both sides. He looks positioned as the Oilers’ seventh defenceman, ready to step in when injuries or poor play open a door.
Dach is the bubble forward most likely to stick. The St.
Albert product came over before the trade deadline and brought energy to the bottom six, scoring two goals and four points in eight regular-season games before adding one assist in five playoff games. He is not waiver exempt, but it would be a surprise if he were not in the lineup on Sept.
There are also a number of waiver-exempt players who could still be part of Edmonton’s plans in 2026-27. The notable names are Ike Howard, Matthew Savoie, Viljami Marjala, Connor Clattenburg, Owen Michaels, and Quinn Hutson.
Puckpedia also lists William Nicholl, Nathaniel Day, Samuel Jonsson, Tomáš Cibulka, Patrik Štefan, Damien Carfagna, Brady Stonehouse, Beau Akey, Aku Räty, and Connor Ungar as waiver-exempt.
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