The first day of free agency, July 1, was fireworks, and not just because it was Canada Day. The Edmonton Oilers made a number of very encouraging moves, one of the biggest being the signing of Viktor Arvidsson.
Arvidsson’s career
Arvidsson was drafted in the fourth round, 112th overall by the Nashville Predators and spent the first seven years of his career in the state of Tennessee. He put up a career high 61 points in the 2016–17 and 2017–18 seasons.
Arvidsson spent the last three years with the Los Angeles Kings and is therefore well known to both the Oilers faithful and to the Oilers roster, and not in the best way. The Oilers have met up with the Kings in the first round of the playoffs three years in a row now and Arvidsson has become hated for being a little too light on his feet. In fact, no Edmonton playoff watch party in the last three years has ever heard it put that politely.
Fortunately for the Oilers, he wasn’t only hated for his skills on the diving board, but also for his skill at play making and putting the puck in the net. This past post season he scored three points in five games, and the year before he put up seven points in six games. It’s time to put that hatred behind us and appreciate those skills, both honest and dishonest, that he will now be bringing to the table for the Oilers.
Last year, though in a very small sample size, Arvidsson scored 15 points in 18 games. One can only imagine what he’ll be able to do on a line with Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. If he does spend a significant amount of time with one of those two demi gods, I don’t see any way he scores less than 70 points next year.
Arvidsson is known as a goal scorer just as often as a playmaker as his stats bear out. He is a similar player to Evander Kane but a better skater and play maker. Here are his stats from hockeyreference.com:
| SEASON | TEAM | GP | Goals | Assists | Points | TOI |
| 2014-15 | NSH | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10:15 |
| 2015-16 | NSH | 56 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 12:24 |
| 2016-17 | NSH | 80 | 31 | 30 | 61 | 17:09 |
| 2017-18 | NSH | 78 | 29 | 32 | 61 | 17:45 |
| 2018-19 | NSH | 58 | 34 | 14 | 48 | 19:09 |
| 2019-20 | NSH | 57 | 15 | 13 | 28 | 16:12 |
| 2020-21 | NSH | 50 | 10 | 15 | 25 | 16:36 |
| 2021-22 | LAK | 66 | 20 | 29 | 49 | 16:59 |
| 2022-23 | LAK | 77 | 26 | 33 | 59 | 17:06 |
| 2023-24 | LAK | 18 | 6 | 9 | 15 | 16:42 |
| Career | – | 546 | 183 | 183 | 362 | 16:42 |
His underlying statistics
So far as the deeper, underlying statistics go, Arvidsson fares very well. All of the on-ice shot attempt percentages and goal percentages statistics like Corsi, fenwick, shots for, goals for, xGF, shot chances for, high danger chances for, and high danger goals for, are firmly above 50%. All this is to say that when he is on the ice, his team has controlled the play more than been controlled by the opponent.
The same is true for his individual underlying statistics. In the past three years, among the 673 players with over 1000 minutes played, Arvidsson ranks 73rd in Corsi For percentage, 14th in individual scoring chances for per sixty minutes, and, most impressive, is 5th in individual Corsi for per 60 minutes. Again, all this is to say that he himself gets a lot of shot attempts and scoring chances. Statistics like these are heavily influenced by the team playing around the individual, and the only teams consistently better than Edmonton in these areas are Carolina and Florida, which means that, for Arvidsson, these numbers are essentially guaranteed to rise.
The one thing that could be concerning about Arvidsson is injury, if not major injury then the time he may miss to minor injuries. Arvidsson has lost significant time to relatively minor injuries in his last five seasons and last season he played only 18 games. Arvidsson’s injury page is riddled with lower body and back injuries. It would not be unreasonable to count him out for 15 games this season.
Where does Arvidsson fit on the Oilers lineup
Now, enough of useless injury speculation and time for the fun stuff, where will Arvidsson fit into the lineup? We have a decent look at how the Oilers roster will look at the start of the season. With Jeff Skinner also joining the team and Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark, Corey Perry, Connor Brown staying, there will have to be some movement in the roster as the Oilers are currently a couple million over the cap, but for today I will assume that the roster will stay the same.
The most obvious option is to leave the first line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, McDavid, and Zach Hyman alone and give Draisaitl the linemates he deserves and has been waiting on for many years now, making the second line Skinner, Draisaitl, Arvidsson. That leaves a combination of Henrique, Kane, Ryan McLeod, Dylan Holloway, Connor Brown, Janmark, and Perry for the bottom six.
In order to bring the most out of a man though, you put him with McDavid. So Hyman-McDavid-Arvidsson or Skinner-McDavid-Arvidsson are also terrific options. Those would be excellent lines and would still leave one or both of Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins to play on a line with Draisaitl. Since McDavid has chemistry with his current line though, it is more likely they keep the first line as it is.
If you want to use Arvidsson to bolster the depth, a line of the speedy McLeod and Brown with Arvidsson could be a very dangerous option. Brown has likely regained a measure of his confidence from his excellent playoff performance and he and McLeod might appreciate the vote of confidence in being paired with a seasoned scorer.
The truth of the matter is that the Oilers became one of the most dynamic teams in the NHL on July 1. There aren’t a lot of line combinations that don’t make sense now. This looks like a lineup that can have scoring depth for the entire 2024–25 season.
For an acting GM, Jeff Jackson just put together one of the best free agency days in recent memory, though Nashville Predators fans are probably still partying in the streets. Barring any serious changes, with the help of Arvidsson, the Oilers should be considered an early favourite for the Stanley Cup.
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