Stan Bowman’s March 2026 deadline work just got a little cleaner.
The big swing was already in place: a package that sent a 2028 second-round pick, Andrew Mangiapane and a top-12 lottery-protected 2027 first-round pick to the Blackhawks of Chicago in exchange for Jason Dickinson, Connor Murphy and Colton Dach. Now Edmonton has added another layer to it, with Dach signing a two-year deal worth $1.2 million per year this week.
That matters because the Oilers now have all three players under contract on reasonable terms. Dickinson is locked in for five years at $4 million.
Murphy is signed for five years at $4.1 million. And Dach, who looked promising in his brief run with Edmonton, is in for two more years as well.
Murphy and Dickinson were the headliners in the deal, and both fit what the Oilers were after. Murphy brought the aggressive, smart, shut-down defensive game Edmonton had been chasing for years, the kind of presence it had not really found since Kris Russell and Adam Larsson were on the roster. Dickinson gave them a dependable two-way center, and he won over the city by playing through fractures in his foot and ankle during the playoffs.
Dach was the extra piece, at least on paper. But the 23-year-old showed offensive touch and real hitting ability in eight regular-season games with the Oilers. At 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, he has the frame and edge that can translate into a useful power forward if he can sharpen his consistency and improve his reads at the NHL level.
There’s also a bigger payoff for Bowman in the way this was handled. By getting Dickinson and Murphy signed before they reached free agency, Edmonton avoided losing them and had a chance to keep two players who would have cost more on the open market and been harder to replace, especially Murphy. The draft capital was spent, and some of it had to be used to convince Chicago to absorb the underperforming Mangiapane, but the Oilers kept the core of the return in house.
Bowman’s 2025-26 season has had its rough spots. Signing Mangiapane to a two-year deal was his one clearly poor move.
Trent Frederic’s eight-year contract, the Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak-for-Tristan Jarry trade, and the Sam O’Reilly-for-Ike Howard swap all still have time to work, but they look shaky right now. On the positive side, Bowman also landed Jack Roslovic on a cheap deal and signed free agent Josh Samanski.
Still, this Dickinson-Murphy-Dach combination is shaping up as his best work of the year. It’s not fair to call it a grand slam home run yet, but it’s getting there fast. The Oilers have size, skill and aggression in the fold, and Dach now has a chance to develop into the kind of player who can move from a bottom line to a skill line.
That kind of player is hard to find. Peter Chiarelli once did it with Patrick Maroon and Zack Kassian before giving too much to Milan Lucic, while Ken Holland hit big by bringing in Evander Kane as a free agent. Dach has a little of that same kind of feel, and if he takes another step, this deal could look even better than it does now.
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