Free agency opens today and as always, fans love to speculate what their favourite team has in store for the day. It’s a day where there’s usually the obvious overpayment to the gritty, old veteran, or in the opposite spectrum, the absurd-obvious steal to the young goal scorer.
The Edmonton Oilers have several needs heading into this free agency. If guys like Warren Foegele and Adam Henrique are walking away, along with the pressing need at the right side of defence, the Oilers look to acquire a top-six winger for Leon Draisaitl—which was made very evident a few days ago from Kris Knobaluch— and a few bottom six players that can score. Let’s look deeper into the most realistic targets for the Oilers based on fit and money wise.
Top-six wingers
Jake DeBrusk
For what seems to be years and years of endless speculation, Elliott Friedman reported over the weekend that Edmonton is interested in Jake Debrusk. Debrusk, a native of Edmonton, is coming off his seventh season with the Boston Bruins, collecting 40 points in 80 games. In his career, he has compiled ~140 goals and over 260 points thus far. He’s been a consistent middle-six producer for the Bruins. There’s been countless rumors in the past that the Oilers had interest in DeBrusk before, and now they can make that a reality today. DeBrusk is a hard-nosed forechecker who can be relied to produce offence and isn’t a liability in his own zone.
DeBrusk would be seen as the Zach Hyman on a line with Draisaitl and I think he’s the perfect winger for our German stud. Debrusk is very likely to sign in Alberta as well as he’s recently bought a house in Calgary since his girlfriend is doing her residency training there. Keep an eye out for these two to tango.
Viktor Arvidsson
Oiler fans know Viktor Arvidsson well by playing the Los Angeles Kings three straight years in the playoffs. Arvidsson is a pain to play against, he loves to flop on the ice, he draws a lot of penalties, and man you just want to punch his face in. Arvidsson has shown to be a decent play driver in L.A. while being somewhat okay defensively.
The biggest issues with Arvidsson is the fact he gets hurt a lot and can’t really finish at a high level, which is an area of concern for an Oilers team that finished 28th in the league in terms of finishing. He played 18 regular season games collecting six goals and 15 points. In the last two years for L.A., he had 26 and 20 goals respectively. In Nashville, he had 30 goals three times including 34 in 58 games in 2018–19. But, obviously, times have changed since then. Bob Stauffer has connected Arvidsson to Edmonton before so there are rumors circling that he could become an Oiler. At this point, I rather Edmonton go all in after DeBrusk, but if that doesn’t work out, I would expect to see Arvidsson on 29’s wing come camp. I guess if you can’t beat em, join em.
Jeff Skinner
Definitely the most intriguing option available is Jeff Skinner, who was recently bought out by the Buffalo Sabres. Skinner is an elite goal scorer who was overpaid in Buffalo. He definitely won’t help his team in the defensive zone, but makes it up for the offence he provides. The Oilers, like I mentioned, have a serious problem of actually scoring on the amount of chances they generate. If they had a lethal goal scorer in the line up against Florida, they probably win.
Skinner would easily be a beautiful fit next to Draisaitl and he probably hits 40 goals without any special teams time. Skinner scored 24 goals, 35 goals and 33 goals in his last three seasons on a pretty bad Sabres team. Skinner also won’t cost a lot on a one- or two-year deal and he’ll probably take less on a contending team because he has yet to play a single playoff game in his career. He’ll have a lot of suitors and I hope the Oilers make it work.
Bottom-six players
Anthony Duclair
Anthony Duclair, while not a defensive guru by any means, is a skilled, fast winger that could work for Draisaitl. At 29-years-old in August, Duclair has bounced around a lot, seeing most of his success with the Florida Panthers. Duclair would be a good, cheap option for Edmonton and would probably cost ~$3M as he has for most of his career. Duclair was an amazing fit in Tampa, scoring 15 points in 17 games. He would also be a good fit for Ryan McLeod on the third line which would give the Oilers some more depth down there.
Yakov Trenin
Yak over Trenin is personally my favourite bottom-six forward this offseason. He’s a big body who loves to get in on the forecheck and lays the body a lot. He’s really good defensively, an excellent PKer, and can produce offence at a decent rate. Trenin scored 17 goals in the 2021–22 season for Nashville and netted a career high 24 points twice from 2021 to 2023.
At the deadline, the Colorado Avalanche acquired him and in a fourth line role, he went 2–1–3 in 16 games. I think Trenin is gonna be highly sought after because he plays a game that’s made for the playoffs. His likely price range will probably be in the $2M AAV range for two to three years which is perfectly reasonable. Imagine a fourh line of Mattias Janmark-Trenin-Connor Brown?? All that speed and defensive presence! Would be nice to see.
Right shot defencemen
Sean Walker
Now, you might ask while I have two charts here for Sean Walker. Here’s the thing. Walker had a terrific year for the Philadelphia Flyers. He played a lot with Nick Seeler and was one of the best pairings in the NHL. Walker by himself on the ice has a xG% of 54.19 and an actual GF% of 59.39.
Now…when he went to Colorado things changed. He regressed back to his Kings form, being bad defending off the rush and was a liability for the Avalanche against the Dallas Stars. He was probably the worst D in that entire series. I still think Walker is an upgrade on Cody Ceci, but if he costs more than $4M over a long term, it might just be better to keep Ceci until the deadline to upgrade that spot. I have some concerns but wouldn’t mind Walker if he comes at a cheap price
Adam Boqvist
Adam Boqvist was recently bought out by the Columbus Blue Jackets. Being a former eighth overall draft pick in 2018, it’s safe to say he hasn’t met expectations. Boqvist was touted as a wickedly skilled offensive dman which hasn’t translated to the NHL level yet. He played 76 games in Chicago scoring 29 points before being exiled in the Seth Jones trade to Columbus. Boqvist had 56 points during his time there and had a career year in 2022–23 scoring 24 points in 46 games, on pace for a 41 point season in an 82 game schedule.
He’d be a low-risk, high-reward signing for the Oilers and could explode with the talent Edmonton has up front and could set himself with a nice payday next year in Free agency.
Anything is possible
It should hopefully be an exciting day for Oilers fans. As of writing this, the team has yet to announce the anticipated Brown and Janmark extensions, I still believe Evander Kane will be traded, although it may be later than initially I thought, and we havent heard a lot of rumors about who the Oilers are targeting. Does Jeff Jackson have something up his sleeve? Has he tightened all the leaks? We shall see.
