One of the many indicators of the strength of a team’s prospect pool is the amount of prospects they send to the World Junior Classic each season.
The tournament, running from Boxing Day until the early New Year, is one of the most highly anticipated events in hockey each and every year. It gives the world’s best prospects a chance to showcase their talents and justify why they were drafted, or for some who aren’t yet drafted a chance to improve their draft stock and jump up the prospect rankings.
Generally speaking, if a team has a bunch of prospects in this tournament, especially those on Team Canada or Team USA for example, their prospect pool is in good shape. Concerns arise when the team does not have any representation at the World Junior Classic.
Only two NHL teams don’t have prospects
And this is where the Edmonton Oilers sit right now. For the 2024 World Junior Classic, the Oilers are one of two teams that have zero prospects in the tournament.
Is this a case of someone being snubbed? Not likely, as the Oilers do not have a particularly impressive prospect pool at the moment of players who are eligible. And it is only getting worse as the team trades prospects and draft picks to maximize their chances of success while in their competitive window.
| Team | Number of Prospects | Prospects at Tournament |
| Anaheim Ducks | 3 | Noah Warren (CAN), Rodwin Dionicio (SUI), Casey Terrance (USA) |
| Arizona Coyotes | 7 | Maveric Lamoureux (CAN), Conor Geekie (CAN), Samu Bau (FIN), Julian Lutz (GER), Melker Thelin (SWE), Michael Hrabal (CZE), Adam Zlnka (SVK) |
| Boston Bruins | 2 | Matthew Poitras (CAN), Dans Locmelis (LAT) |
| Buffalo Sabres | 7 | Scott Ratzlaff (CAN), Matthew Savoie (CAN), Norwin Panocha (GER), Anton Wahlberg (SWE), Noah Ostlund (SWE), Jiri Kulich (CZE), Maxim Strbak (SVK) |
| Calgary Flames | 1 | Samuel Honzek (SVK) |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 2 | Felix Unger Sorum (SWE), Jakub Vondras (CZE) |
| Chicago Blackhawks | 6 | Adam Gajan (SVK), Martin Misiak (SVK), Sam Rinzel (USA), Gavin Hayes (USA), Oliver Moore (USA), Frank Nazar (USA) |
| Colorado Avalanche | 0 | |
| Columbus Blue Jackets | 4 | Denton Mateychuk (CAN), Jordan Dumais (CAN), Oiva Keskinen (FIN), Gavin Brindley (USA) |
| Dallas Stars | 1 | Aram Minnetian (USA) |
| Detroit Red Wings | 5 | Nate Danielson (CAN), Kevin Bicker (GER), Anton Johansson (SWE), Axel Sandin Pellikka (SWE), Trey Augustine (USA) |
| Edmonton Oilers | 0 | |
| Florida Panthers | 2 | Sandis Vilmanis (LAT), Marek Alscher (CZE) |
| Los Angeles Kings | 1 | Otto Salin (FIN) |
| Minnesota Wild | 3 | Rasmus Kumpulainen (FIN), Liam Ohgren (SWE), Servac Petrovsky (SVK) |
| Montreal Canadiens | 4 | Owen Beck (CAN), Filip Mesar (SVK), Jacob Fowler (USA), Lane Hutson (USA) |
| Nashville Predators | 2 | Matthew Wood (CAN), Kasper Kulonummi (FIN) |
| New Jersey Devils | 2 | Lenni Hameenaho (FIN), Seamus Casey (USA) |
| New York Islanders | 2 | Danny Nelson (USA), Quinn Finley (USA) |
| New York Rangers | 3 | Adam Sykora (SVK), Drew Fortescue (USA), Gabe Perreault (USA) |
| Ottawa Senators | 4 | Kevin Reidler (SWE), Oskar Pettersson (SWE), Tomas Hamara (CZE), Jorian Donovan (CAN) |
| Philadelphia Flyers | 3 | Oliver Bonk (CAN), Alex Ciernik (SVK), Cutter Gauthier (USA) |
| Pittsburgh Penguins | 3 | Brayden Yager (CAN), Kalle Kangas (FIN), Emil Pieniniemi (FIN) |
| San Jose Sharks | 6 | Jake Furlong (CAN), Kasper Halttunen (FIN), Mattias Havelid (SWE), Filip Bystedt (SWE), Eric Pohlkamp (USA), Will Smith (USA) |
| Seattle Kraken | 6 | Carson Rehkopf (CAN), Niklas Kokko (FIN), Jani Nyman (FIN), Zeb Forsfjall (SWE), Eduard Sale (CZE), Ty Nelson (CAN) |
| St. Louis Blues | 7 | Aleksanteri Kaskimaki (FIN), Theo Lindstein (SWE), Otto Stenberg (SWE), Jakub Stancl (CZE), Dalibor Dvorsky (SVK), Juraj Pekarcik (SVK), Jimmy Snuggerud (USA) |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 1 | Issac Howard (USA) |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 2 | Easton Cowan (CAN), Fraser Minten (CAN) |
| Vancouver Canucks | 3 | Elias Pettersson (SWE), Tom Willander (SWE), Jonathan Lekkerimaki (SWE) |
| Vegas Golden Knights | 3 | Arttu Karki (FIN), David Edstrom (SWE), Matyas Sapovaliv (CZE) |
| Washington Capitals | 2 | Ryan Chesley (USA), Ryan Leonard (USA) |
| Winnipeg Jets | 3 | Elias Salomonsson (SWE), Fabian Wagner (SWE), Rutger McGroarty (USA) |
How concerning is this for the Oilers?
If Edmonton is to find a way to sustain their competitive window, the drafting and development process needs to be prioritized. It is one of the important foundational pieces for a successful team, and one of the key reasons why the Oilers struggled to break free from rebuild mode for so many years.
There are a couple ways this will play out. And both end up linked together in the end.
Sustaining through trading
In some situations, teams utilize these assets to prolong their win-now mode. Look at the Vegas Golden Knights and Pittsburgh Penguins as two examples of that. Both of these teams have spent the better part of a decade continuously trading away picks and prospects for players who are better now and (for the most part), both teams have been fairly competitive while doing so.
As much as outsiders can look at how few picks those teams have and how few good prospects they retain, the results of this strategy can be successful with proper talent evaluation at the amateur and professional levels.
Making the most of the few draft picks a team has and properly identifying what types of players will fit in the roster are things that Vegas and Pittsburgh have done well.
Edmonton is showing signs of starting this process, given the amount of draft picks they’ve traded in the Ken Holland era and looking at the Mattias Ekholm trade from last season.
Sustaining through development
On the other side of this, some teams need those prospects to develop and grow into players for the team. The appeal of this is getting young, talented players on entry level deals to fill out roster spots.
Teams with high end talent can be tough to fit in under the cap, as evidenced by Edmonton’s current struggle.
So having prospects on cheap deals to save a few hundred thousand wherever possible can be significant to being able to maximize the cap space available and compose the best roster. And in some cases, even just ice a full roster.
In recent years, the Tampa Bay Lightning leaned towards this type of strategy where the core of the roster and a good portion of the depth was players drafted by the organization. As those players started to grow out of entry level deals, they have had to start trading them and other futures to stay in their competitive window, however. But for a few years, the players who would come up to replace the ones traded were often prospects on entry level deals.
Currently, a team like the Los Angeles Kings is building up in this type of way. Although they have now started leveraging their prospects to acquire the missing pieces via trade, the Kings built up their new team through the draft. They spent years with one of the top prospect pools in the league, have a number of important drafted players growing within the organization.
The current prospect situation for the Oilers
All this to say that the Oilers are currently in a tricky spot. They haven’t drafted great in the last few years. They’ve traded a lot of their picks in the Ken Holland era for players who have not helped the team. And since the 2019 draft, the only three players to see ice time in an Oilers uniform are Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg, and Raphael Lavoie. None of whom have played the equivalent of a full season in total games in the NHL.
And now, the poor drafting and development is showing as the team’s best prospects have all graduated from juniors and have not gotten stuck in development limbo. Holloway is often snakebitten and struggles to stay healthy. Broberg can’t get ice time in the NHL and may end up traded. Lavoie’s development is slow going.
Beyond these handful of players primarily in the AHL, the prospect pool has gotten barren. And for the sake of the Oilers trying to build out a full roster or have assets they can move to accomplish this via trade, it may get tricky for the next GM.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
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