On Tuesday Night, OilersNow Host and 630 CHED Colour Commentator Bob Stauffer tweeted that the Edmonton Oilers were going to bring Brandon Sutter to training camp on a professional try out.
The 34-year-old right-shot centre last played for the Vancouver Canucks in the 2020–21 season. Last coming in at 6’3″ and 190 lbs, the Huntington, New York native has 770 NHL games between the Canucks, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Carolina Hurricanes.
With his five-year contract expiring at the end of the 2020–21 season, Jim Benning had extended Sutter for one year at a $1.125M cap hit. However, he missed the season due to ongoing long COVID symptoms after the Canucks were hit hard by the virus during the previous season. Sutter got into some of the details this past spring in an interview with Donnie and Dhali from the Cancuks media circuit.
What to expect
Sutter likely doesn’t have much left in the tank after missing the past two seasons. Even then, his last season with a goal share above 50% was in 2017–18 and the last season with an expected goal share above 50% was his first in Vancouver. However, the Oilers might look at him as a fourth line centre option that can win draws and kill penalties. Sutter averaged between two to three minutes on the PK per game depending on the season and finished the 2020–21 campaign with a 55.5% faceoff winning percentage.
Sutter would have to come cheap, as the Oilers have yet to extend Evan Bouchard, who will be due a substantial raise. Depending on the roster configuration that Ken Holland and Jay Woodcroft choose to go with, the Oilers figure to have around $4M in cap space before any further contracts are signed.
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