What will the Edmonton Oilers look like five years from now? If you fast-forward to the summer of 2031, the answer starts with a franchise that has already added another Stanley Cup and then has to face the hard part: keeping the window open after the stars age and the draft-pick cupboard runs thin.
Connor McDavid is the centerpiece of that future. By then he’ll be 34 and playing on a new contract, with free agency having arrived in the summer of 2028. Leon Draisaitl will be 35 and still under his current deal, while the older core around them - Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman, Mattias Ekholm and Frederik Andersen - will likely be retired or elsewhere in the NHL.
McDavid’s next decision will still be the biggest one in Edmonton. His value to the Oilers has never been just about what happens on the ice, and owner Daryl Katz has every reason to keep him in Alberta.
McDavid has also never hidden what matters to him in every free-agency interview: winning the Stanley Cup with the Oilers. What happens in the 2027 and 2028 playoffs will shape that call, but the smart money says he stays.
Draisaitl should still be a force by then, too. He turns 31 in October and already showed signs of aging well, with a max foot speed in the 92nd percentile last season according to NHL Edge. He remains one of the two unicorns on the roster, and the expectation is an Evgeni Malkin-level romp through his 30s.
Evan Bouchard is another easy piece to place on the board. His contract runs out in the summer of 2029, and if he keeps driving offence and five-on-five outscoring at the same rate, his next deal will land well above his $10.5 million cap hit.
He’s been remarkably durable over the past five years, playing 81 or 82 games a season, and the scoring numbers are already eye-catching for a modern defenceman, including 95 points in 2025-26. His foot speed sits in the 61st percentile, which will eventually matter, but his puck-moving value should keep him useful deep into his 30s.
The veteran group is where the picture starts to blur. Hyman will be 36 in the summer of 2028 when his contract ends, and while his utility and relentless motor - he’s in the 87th percentile in max speed - may still show up, the injuries figure to pile up and the goals will likely dry up.
Nugent-Hopkins, who will be 36 in the summer of 2029 when his deal expires, should keep declining as well, though both players could still be productive enough to remain in the league five years from now. Whether they’re still in Edmonton may depend on how competitive the team is in those seasons, especially with veterans often chasing one more Cup late in their careers.
The blue line is a little friendlier to age. NHL teams tend to value experience there and are more forgiving when foot speed slips.
Ekholm is already 36, Connor Murphy is 33 and Jake Walman is 30, and there’s a decent chance all three are still in the league in five years. Ekholm, in particular, is aging like fine wine.
The younger group is where Edmonton has to keep building. The roster’s future core starts with Matt Savoie and Vasily Podkolzin, while the players who need to take the next step include Ike Howard, Devon Levi, Ty Emberson and Shakir Mukhamadullin.
Beyond that, projecting young NHL regulars gets tricky. Tommy Lafreniere has a path to the league, but he’ll need the next two seasons to go right.
On defence, Asher Barnett and Beau Akey look like the best bets in the system, with the speed, coverage and puck-moving ability needed for meaningful second-pairing work.
The hardest part of any five-year forecast is the outside help. Edmonton is not likely to have a flood of draft picks ready to push for NHL jobs in 2031 unless something goes badly wrong in the annual championship chase. Management could, and should, use offer sheets whenever possible, but the habit of moving first-round picks at the deadline makes that harder to pull off.
That’s why the projected 2031-32 opening-night lineup leans so heavily on what the organization already has. Up front, the depth spots could be filled by system players such as Lafreniere, William Nicholl, Rudolfs Berzkalns and Owen Michaels, all of whom are regarded as strong two-way players but not flashy scorers. The odds of Edmonton drafting a true skill-line difference-maker between now and then are slim, especially since the club won’t be picking in the top 20 unless things go very wrong.
If the Oilers are going to add elite offence, the best guess here is a free-agent splash, with David Pastrnak as the name in the chair. He’s still producing at a massive level, with four straight 100-point seasons, and free agency may be the only realistic route for Edmonton to land a player good enough to ride with McDavid. Even if Bowman stopped dealing first-round picks today, the future still looks thin when it comes to finding that kind of scoring.
On defence and in goal, the projection gets even murkier beyond Bouchard. Edmonton has shown an ability to identify college defencemen, which is why Barnett and Damien Carfagna show up here.
Mukhamadullin is a stretch for the top pair, but defencemen are easier to find, and the Oilers should be able to trade for a major piece once Ekholm drops off and leaves the NHL. A deadline move for an Ekholm-type player is almost certainly part of Bowman’s future.
The larger issue is unavoidable: Edmonton’s long run of trading first-round picks catches up to it by 2031. Offer sheets can still be part of the plan, but rival teams will be ready for them.
By the early 2030s, the bottom of the roster may be closer than the top, and at that point moving McDavid and Draisaitl might not just be sensible - it may be necessary. A rebuild will be staring the Oilers in the face by 2031.
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For a team built to win now, the uncertainty is what makes this such a nerve-racking plan. A lineup that looks thin on paper is one thing, but the added concern is whether the veteran core can stay healthy enough to make any version of it work over time. If those pieces are shaky, the Oilers may be forced to improvise again before long, and that is not usually a comfortable place to be in for a roster trying to chase higher expectations. [Read more 🡒]