Edmonton’s offseason looked like it was careening off the rails before the Oilers found a way to steady it.
A sneak peek at Oil Drop Episode 61 of “Inside the War Room” lays out just how much was happening behind closed doors as the club tried to clean up an ugly start to the summer. The early mess included a showdown with the Vegas Golden Knights over the right to speak with and sign former head coach Bruce Cassidy, but the management group eventually started to regain control.
One of the first priorities was obvious: goaltending. Oilers general manager Stan Bowman opened the discussion by stressing the need to improve in net, and he made the case for Buffalo Sabres goalie Devon Levi as a potential long-term answer. The room then got a new wrinkle when assistant GM Bill Scott mentioned Frederik Andersen of the Stanley Cup-winning Carolina Hurricanes could be available.
Bowman followed that lead by calling new Oilers head coach Mike Babcock for more information on Andersen, who Babcock had previously coached with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The conversation clearly moved things forward. Edmonton ended up signing Andersen to a one-year contract with an average annual value of $2.8 million, and the club settled on a three-goalie setup featuring Levi, Andersen and Tristan Jarry.
The other major break came through a trade involving Darnell Nurse. Oilers CEO and president Jeff Jackson said he had spoken with San Jose Sharks GM Mike Greer, and Nurse had approved a move to San Jose. Because the Sharks were willing to absorb Nurse’s full $9.5 million cap hit per season, Edmonton finally created the kind of cap flexibility it had been chasing for years.
In return, the Oilers got defencemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zack Sharp. Whether one or both of them end up sticking remains to be seen.
Bowman’s summer work didn’t stop there. Edmonton also signed Colton Dach, Jason Dickinson, Kasperi Kapanen and Connor Murphy, giving the front office a more complete body of work after the rocky opening stretch.
That early stretch was rough. Word leaked that the Oilers were pursuing Cassidy for the head coaching job, which triggered a chain reaction that ended with Kris Knoblauch being fired and the organization getting dragged into a public relations fight with Vegas.
Edmonton eventually landed on Babcock, a controversial choice that left plenty of negativity hanging over the team. The goaltending decision and the Nurse trade helped change the mood.
Now the focus shifts to whether management can keep its hands steady. If the Oilers avoid a rash move, they should be positioned to add more forward help when the Monday, March 1 NHL Trade Deadline arrives. There’s still a lot of hockey left before then, though, and the rising salary cap could make for some interesting movement around the league.
There are still plenty of questions hanging over the 2026-27 NHL season in Edmonton. Will Babcock and assistant coach D.J.
Smith help the team or hurt it? How will the three-goalie system function?
Could one of those goalies become a trade chip later in the season? And what kind of year will veterans like Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Mattias Ekholm and Zach Hyman have?
The biggest question of all might be how they respond if Babcock benches them or disciplines them.
For now, the Oilers are trying to ride the momentum they built in early July and turn it into something much bigger.
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Pronger said he supports that shift, and he tied it to recent movement around the league involving players with no-movement clauses. The topic also reopened an old Oilers flashpoint in the background, because his own past request for a change of scenery once became a public issue in Edmonton and drew a sharp response from a former team executive, a reminder that the balance between player control and team authority has long been part of the franchises story. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Camp Injuries Just Created Two Urgent Roster Questions
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The injuries create two obvious early questions for the Oilers: who fills the short-term holes, and how aggressively do they chase outside options before the season gets rolling? Penalty-killing depth and goaltending are the cleanest places to look, but the urgency only grows when a camp opens with uncertainty and a few lineup spots already under strain. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Face One Huge Connor Hellebuyck Question In Win-Now Push
Connor Hellebuycks name has quickly moved from hypothetical to very real for teams hunting a fix in goal, and Edmonton has to be watching closely. The Oilers are in a win-now frame of mind, which is why a proven No. 1 like Hellebuyck would naturally sit near the top of the wish list if Winnipeg decides to keep reshaping its crease situation.
The Jets acquisition of Stuart Skinner has only added fuel to the idea that a move could be coming, even if nothing is finalized. For Edmonton, the question is not whether Hellebuyck would fit the urgency of the moment, but whether the price and timing line up well enough to make a deal realistic before the rest of the market catches up. [Read more 🡒]