Regular season action is just a few short weeks away now as we hit the opening of the Edmonton Oilers training camp on September 21. With that, we now know who has been invited to take part in camp and it gives us a chance to look at some dark horse candidates to push for an opening night roster spot.
Oilers training camp roster
Forwards
| Drake Caggiula | Derek Ryan |
| Mattias Janmark | Greg McKegg |
| Zach Hyman | Lane Pederson |
| Brandon Sutter | Adam Erne |
| Seth Griffith | Brad Malone |
| Connor Brown | Leon Draisaitl |
| Warren Foegele | Cam Wright |
| Jayden Grubbe | Matvey Petrov |
| Dino Kambeitz | Carl Berglund |
| Carter Savoie | Ethan De Jong |
| Xavier Bourgault | Dylan Holloway |
| James Hamblin | Ture Linden |
| Jake Chiasson | Raphael Lavoie |
| Ty Tullio | Ryan McLeod |
| Sam Gagner | Evander Kane |
| Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | Connor McDavid |
Defencemen
| Evan Bouchard | #5 Cody Ceci |
| Ben Gleason | Mattias Ekholm |
| Darnell Nurse | Brett Kulak |
| Connor Corcorcan | Vincent Desharnais |
| Alex Peters | Phil Kemp |
| Noah Ganske | Markus Niemelainen |
| Noel Hoefenmayer | Beau Akey |
| Xavier Bernard | Jake Johnson |
| Cam Dineen | Philip Broberg |
| Maximus Wanner |
Goalies
| Calvin Pickard | Nathan Day |
| Olivier Rodrigue | Jack Campbell |
| Tyler Parks | Stuart Skinner |
Hockey is back in Oil County
In all, the team has invited 32 forwards, 19 defenders, and six goalies to participate.
Some players are (obviously) locks to make the team. But a few players will be worth watching to see how they engage with training camp.
Of major note, Ekholm will be held out of camp due to his hip flexor.
Some bubble guys include prospects like Dylan Holloway, Raphael Lavoie, and Matvey Petrov (who had a stellar showing in the Young Stars Tourney). They are competing with a few of the veterans, like Lane Pederson, Drake Caggiula, Brandon Sutter, and Adam Erne, both of whom are in camp on PTOs.
Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks as storylines from camp come out and rosters begin to take shape!
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
Just a couple of nit picks by me:
1) I don’t think that Ekholm is being held out of camp, end stop – just the beginning of camp – he’s fully expected to skate well before the regular season as far as I know.
2) I woudn’t say that Petrov is a bubble guy, I would say he has all but zero chance to make the team and might even get just 1 exhibition game before he’s assigned to Bako. He’s a 20 year old rookie pro that has a ton of work to do away from the puck (as expected) and, for me, he wasn’t one of the top forwards at the rookie tournament – he was OK and had a nice period in game 2 but Savoie and Bourgault were the top forwards for sure.
3) I don’t think Holloway is a bubble guy – I think he’s a lock and there is one forward spot open for Lavoie, Sutter, Erne, Pederson (I think Caggiula has no chance).
Interestingly with Petrov, NHLe numbers have him at the top of the Oilers prospects for expected performance in the NHL (impossble to actually predict, its just stats based on what other players have done going from whatever league of origin to the NHL). And I remember a preseason/training camp a few years back where I think it was Ryan McLeod, well before he was close to the NHL, was one of the last cuts, out of nowhere, and almost made the team.
So with Holloway having a weaker rookie season (as expected with very little ice time or opportunity), there is competition for someone like Petrov to at least challenge for that spot. Make the team? Not likely. But if he happens to go Ty Rattie on us he could push his way up.
You are right though, Holloway and Lavoie are the presumptive guys who are taking those spots. Sutter and Pederson seem to be competing for a 4th line/healthy scratch spot, separate from the rookies. Caggiula has played his way down to AHL regular last season but teams seem to like players they’re familiar with so he gets his name tossed in here but there’s plenty of better options, he just gets to be a vet in camp trying to play his way back up.