The Edmonton Oilers’ signing of Alex Formenton on Wednesday was always going to land with noise attached. Given Formenton’s role in the trial involving five players from the 2018 Hockey Canada team, the reaction came fast and hard. Formenton addressed the move himself on Wednesday, calling the return to the NHL a “process” and saying he’s thankful for the chance.
What stood out most to Elliotte Friedman wasn’t simply that Formenton is back in the league. It was where he landed.
On the latest 32 Thoughts podcast, Friedman said he never imagined one of those five players would end up with a Canadian team, or that a Canadian club would be willing to make that call in the first place. He said, “Formenton was the first to be reinstated by Hockey Canada, and I heard when that happened there was a chance he was going to be back in the NHL somewhere.
I never would have imagined that he would want to play in Canada, and that it would be a Canadian team that signed him. I think that is the thing that shocked me the most is, I just never thought that one of those players would ever play for a Canadian team again.”
Friedman also brought up the backlash that followed Cal Foote’s attempt to sign in Sweden this year, a move the team ultimately backed away from after the reaction. He doubled down on the same point, saying, “…so I think that’s the thing that shocked me the most is I didn’t think I’d ever see a day where one of those players would want to play in Canada, or a Canadian team would say we’re going to sign one of those players.”
There was another twist here, too: the Oilers didn’t give Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly a heads-up before making the move. Daly was asked whether the league had to approve the contract, and he said no. Once the court case was finished, the league worked through what reinstatement would look like for the players if they returned to NHL action, and that process did not require NHL approval.
Daly also acknowledged that Formenton’s signing was a surprise to him. He did not necessarily learn it before the public announcement, which means he found out right alongside everyone else when the news broke. Carter Hart signed in Vegas, but Formenton’s move still caught Daly off guard.
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Edmonton has room to maneuver with cap space opening up for 2027-28, but that flexibility also comes with a decision the front office cannot afford to delay. Savoie is eligible for an extension, and with comparable experience and production to Minten, the Oilers likely need to get serious about a long-term arrangement before the market gets any louder and the risk of an offer sheet becomes harder to ignore. [Read more 🡒]