Owen Michaels has already done enough in Edmonton to make people forget how little noise surrounded his signing.
Last spring, the Oilers brought in the undrafted college free agent with hardly any fanfare. On paper, it looked like a depth move, the kind of low-risk addition teams make all the time.
Michaels had put up 13 goals and 26 points in 39 games as a junior at Michigan State University, numbers that didn’t exactly scream future NHL regular. For a lot of people, that made his path to the league seem thin at best.
Then he made the opening night roster, and the questions started. Who was this guy?
Where did he come from? Three games in, the answer is getting clearer by the shift.
Michaels hasn’t arrived as a scorer, and nobody is pretending otherwise. Through his first three NHL games, he has been used in a depth role and has averaged less than 12 minutes of ice time.
But when he has been on the ice, he’s given Edmonton exactly what a team wants from that kind of player: steady, reliable minutes, clean work in the defensive zone, and details that keep coaches happy. He has also chipped in two goals already, which doesn’t hurt.
Even more telling, his teammates have noticed. After the Oilers’ first win of the season against the Vancouver Canucks, Connor McDavid gave Michaels the player-of-the-game award, a sign of how quickly the rookie has earned respect inside the room.
Head coach Mike Babcock has been just as impressed, and he didn’t hold back after Saturday’s 3-1 win over the Seattle Kraken.
“Mich’s done an unbelievable job,” Babcock said following Saturday’s 3-1 win over the Seattle Kraken. “He’s come in here, he has confidence, he has swagger.
He wasn’t a big-time scorer, he was a player. He’s out there winning faceoffs and cross-checking people.
He’s always in video in the right spots. I don’t know how that happened and I don’t know how we got him, but we’re lucky to have him.”
That’s strong praise from a coach who has, at least in the past, been known to be tough on younger players. Babcock has already singled Michaels out more than once, too.
“The big guys played well, Michaels’ line played really good, Michaels was … thank goodness for him,” Babcock said after the Oilers’ first win of the season against the Canucks.
The timing matters here, because Edmonton has needed help. The Oilers have collected five of a possible six points through three games even while missing Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Matt Savoie, and Jason Dickinson. With pieces out of the lineup, someone had to absorb responsibility, and Michaels has stepped right into that opening.
There will be growing pains. He is still new to the professional game, and there’s no reason to expect a smooth ride every night.
But what he has shown so far suggests more than a short-term fill-in. He looks like a player who can stick, and for a team that doesn’t have a lot of draft picks and prospects to lean on, that kind of find matters.
Stan Bowman may have uncovered a real one.
In Other News...
Hurricanes Enter Connor Hellebuyck Talk With One Big Timing Question
Around the league, the Connor Hellebuyck chatter has started to settle into a familiar pattern: contenders wondering whether there is a real path to land one of the NHLs top goaltenders, and clubs with questions in net trying to see if the timing can ever line up. Elliotte Friedman reported that the San Jose Sharks and Winnipeg Jets briefly explored a trade involving Hellebuyck, while other teams such as the Oilers and Hurricanes have been floated as fits because of their goaltending situations and their desire to keep pushing toward a championship window.
What makes the discussion interesting is the standard Hellebuyck appears to be using. He is open to San Jose despite the uncertainty around that roster, but his bigger aim is to end up with a team he believes can win the Stanley Cup within the next three years. For Edmonton, that creates a clear but unresolved question: whether the organization can present the kind of immediate contender profile that would make a goalie of Hellebuycks stature view it as the right destination. [Read more 🡒]
Red Wings Suddenly Face Real Risk With Simon Edvinsson
With the NHL calendar still early, the trade market is already starting to take shape around a few clubs trying to solve very different problems. Detroits situation with Simon Edvinsson has become one of the more notable ones, as contract talks have reportedly run into trouble and the Red Wings are at least looking at trade possibilities if they cannot get the defenseman locked in.
For Edmonton, the ripple effect is less direct but still relevant. The Oilers are weighing ways to add forward depth, and that kind of search can quickly pull other teams into the discussion as front offices look for pieces that fit their needs. Around the league, there is plenty of movement and speculation already, from the Red Wings' uncertainty on the blue line to other clubs testing trade ideas, which is the kind of backdrop that can turn a quiet stretch into a much busier one. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Trade Focus Turns To One Roster Battle Up Front
As the Oilers sift through the early-season picture, the front offices attention has shifted toward a familiar roster question up front: whether to add another forward without paying too steep a price. Edmonton has been linked to the idea of moving a depth defenseman to address the forward group, a type of deal that usually only makes sense if the organization believes it can protect its blue line while improving its scoring depth.
The timing is part of what makes the discussion more interesting. Edmonton is still waiting on key reinforcements at forward, which should ease some of the pressure to act immediately, but the market chatter keeps circling back to which spare defensemen might be available in the right deal. Around the league, there has also been some loose speculation tying several trade requests to USA Olympic roster overlap, though the stronger read is that each situation stands on its own rather than forming some broader trend. [Read more 🡒]