Last week, the Edmonton Oilers lost two defencemen who were slotted to be in their starting six: Cody Ceci via trade and Philip Broberg via offer sheet (not to mention having lost Vincent Desharnais to free agency earlier this summer).
As a result, the back end has gone from being pretty much set to having some question marks, with the #4 and #6 spots on the right side being wide open.
Given the same, there are some murmurings of the Oilers bringing in another defenceman, whether on a contract or a professional try out. We asked Oil Country who they thought it should be.
Want to take part in Sunday Census polls? We send them out every week on our Twitter at @oilrigEDM. Follow along or send in ideas for the next poll!
Tyson Barrie
37.1% of people picked a return of locker room favourite Tyson Barrie. Barrie was traded at the 2023 deadline in order to acquire Mattias Ekholm, a move that has paid off dividends and was arguably the best move in Ken Holland’s tenure as Oilers GM.
Still, we know that Barrie was well liked in the Oilers room, and he did play well during his time with the Oilers, scoring 132 points in 190 games, a 57 point per 82 game pace. It appears that the Oilers may already be in discussions with him to come to training camp on a PTO.
Barrie’s game seemed to take a step back last season in Nashville, where scored just 15 points in 41 games. Granted, that still works out to 30 points in a season.
One issue with Barrie coming back is that he would no longer have a spot on the top power play unit, as Evan Bouchard has taken a firm grip on it. 72 of Barrie’s points as an Oiler came on the man advantage, and so it would be unrealistic to expect him to put up numbers without it.
Barrie averaged 16:11 of even strength time on ice per game during his previous Oilers tenure, and while he did outscore the other team during that time, his 52.3% goal for percentage was eighth on the team (granted, the only players above him who also played 100+ games were Darnell Nurse and Brett Kulak).
However, Barrie was a fairly steady partner for Nurse in his time, including being his major partner in the 2020–21 season which earned Nurse his big contract. Could playing with a familiar face re-spark Nurse’s game?
That season, Barrie and Nurse had a Corsie of 51.2% and goals for percentage of 58.3%. However, their expected goals was only 47.8%, indicating some puck luck may have been at play.
Overall in his tenure, Nurse and Barrie spent 1145:45 together over 179 games, with a 51.4% Corsi, a 55.2% goals for percentage and a 50.24% expected goals for percentage. However, Nurse actually performed better away from Barrie in all but the goals for percentage category.
In his last two seasons, Barrie spent a fair amount of time with Brett Kulak and performed quite well, including an expected goals for percentage of 52.2% in 539 minutes together.
So it could also be the case that Barrie is an option to anchor a solid, veteran third pairing with Kulak to help ease the pressure on the top two defence pairings during the season.
In any event, if you can get Barrie to come in on a PTO, there is absolutely no risk and potentially quite high reward. The only question is if it does look like a fit, would Barrie sign for basically league minimum, which is all the Oilers could afford? He has earned almost $47M in his career, so maybe the money isn’t as big of a factor for him.
No one/internal options
In second place, 24.2% of you chose that the Oilers shouldn’t look at bringing anyone else in and instead roll with what they have.
That would include Troy Stecher, recently signed Josh Brown and Connor Carrick, the recently acquired Ty Emberson, and prospects/AHLers Phil Kemp and Maximus Wanner. I guess you could include Beau Akey, but seeing as he is only 19-years-old with no professional experience and the only defenceman on the website without a number, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he isn’t really in the mix.
Stecher is the veteran of the group and did play pretty decent in his short time in Edmonton last season before succumbing to injury. That includes having positive metrics in his short time with Nurse, which led fans to bemoaning the fact that they couldn’t see the pair together in the playoffs when Nurse was struggling.
Brown leaves a lot to be desired, considering he has never had a season with corsi, goals for, or expected goals for percentage above 50%, although he did have his best counting numbers season last year with 10 points in 51 games.
Carrick has spent more time in the AHL versus the NHL the last four seasons, and at age 30 it seems unlikely he would suddenly make an upswing.
Phil Kemp played his only NHL game on forward instead of defence, however he has shown well in the AHL (even strength goal percentage of 60%) and at age 25 is around the age defencemen start to come into their own.
Maximus Wanner is just 21-years-old, but he had a great first professional season in the AHL last year, with 17 points in 68 games and played regular minutes as a rookie. He is a defence first player as well, something that may be useful for the Oilers back end more than an offensive player. However, it may be a bit premature to expect a player to jump to the NHL two years after juniors.
Ty Emberson is the most intriguing option, and a player many Oilers fans went from basically never having heard of to pencilling in as a strong option alongside Nurse. Part of that is likely due to the fact that the Oilers traded Ceci for him and then didn’t match the Broberg offer sheet, which most people thought was the purpose of the move.
Emberson played 30 games in the NHL last year for San Jose, scoring 10 points. However, he is actually known to be a defensive defenceman, having won the AHL Eastern Conference Defensive Defenceman Award in 2023—which just so happened to be when he was being coached by now Oilers Head Coach Kris Knoblauch.
I would venture a guess that Emberson is the internal option people were thinking of when it came to this poll, and he really does seem like a solid pick.
Travis Dermott
In third place was Travis Dermott, at 21% of the votes. Dermott has been speculated to come in on a PTO following the rumour that the Oilers were looking to bring in a player that Knoblauch was familiarity with. Dermott played for Knoblauch in juniors, where he also played with current Oilers Connor McDavid and Connor Brown.
Dermott has had injury troubles the last couple of years, where a concussion limited him to just 11 games two years ago and then an upper body injury ended his season last year.
His fancy stats show a decline in the last couple years, which is no doubt related to the injuries. He was better than Josh Brown in almost every category though, so that is something.
If Dermott can put his injury issue behind him, it is possible that he could be a good rebound candidate. If so, he is a legitimate NHL defenceman, although more of a #6 than a #4. Still, a PTO for him is definitely worth it.
Justin Schultz
In last place, although still at a healthy 17.7%, is another former Oiler: Justin Schultz.
Like Barrie, Schultz is also an offensive first defenceman, which begs the question again of if he would be a good fit.
Schultz has championship pedigree, having won two cups with Pittsburgh, and his possession metrics with Seattle have been pretty good. He had a corsi of 58% last season and an expected goals percentage of 56.7%. Could a more mature Schultz be a fit for Nurse? After all, it appears that Nurse plays better with offensive defencemen than defensive ones.
While there is opportunity on the Oilers defence, one would think if both Dermott and Barrie were to get a look, along with the other internal options, Schultz maybe looks elsewhere to get a bit of a better shot/more likely situation. Plus, would he want to come back to a city that ran him out of town with the nickname “Jultz” (derogatory)? It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened mind you, but still seems unlikely.
Photo by Katherine Gawlik/Icon Sportswire
