The annual Penticton “Young Stars” tournament just wrapped up, where the Western Canadian NHL team’s pit their prospects against each other. Inevitably, the majority of these players are recent draft picks (with some free agents and trade acquisitions mixed in).
Drafting is always a hot topic, especially for a team like the Edmonton Oilers where prospect depth is low due to the team chasing a Stanley Cup, but a team that will need cheap, young talent to keep the championship window alive in the future due to salary cap restraints.
While we could just do a review and list of Oilers past draft picks to evaluate their draft abilities, where is the fun in that? Instead, let’s see what a team of solely Oilers draft picks would look like.
This exercise won’t require the players to still be a part of the Oilers organization. All that is needed is that they were given an Oilers jersey on draft day.
We will put a cut off date of 2011, because it’s both the earliest year that a current Oilers pick is still playing for the team, and is also the earliest year that any of the current scouting staff were involved with the team (Matti Virmanen, Scott Harlow, and Jim Crosson). Therefore, it gives an overview of the Oilers scouting in general and how we can expect it to go in the future.
Forwards
Dylan Holloway (2020, 14th overall) – Connor McDavid (2015, first overall) – Kailer Yamamoto (2017, 22nd overall)
Tobias Rieder (2011, 114th overall) – Leon Draisaitl (2014, third overall) – Jesse Puljujarvi (2016, fourth overall)
Ryan McLeod (2018, 40th overall) – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011, first overall)- Nail Yakupov (2012, first overall)
Anton Slepyshev (2013, 88th overall) – Jujhar Khaira (2012, 63rd overall) – Raphael Lavoie (2019, 38th overall)
Sam O’Reilly (2024, 32nd overall)
While the depth up the middle is outstanding, the wings leave much to be desired.
There are some solid every day NHLer options in Dylan Holloway, Ryan McLeod, and Kailer Yamamoto, although their offensive games have been wanting. Tobias Rieder had a solid NHL career, albeit not with the Oilers (and when he did come back it seemed to kill his career), and Jesse Puljujarvi and Nail Yakupov had at least a couple good seasons.
But on the fourth line you have Anton Slepyshev, who played 114 regular season and playoff games for the Oilers, tallying 26 points, before heading back to Russia, and Raphael Lavoie, who is performing well in the AHL but has yet to be able to snare a spot in the NHL.
Finally, you have the most recent first-round pick, Sam O’Reilly, in the 13th man spot, because at this young age he still has potential and the rest of the other picks have basically flames out or are behind him on the depth chart.
Trades definitely decimated this roster, as the following players were selected with picks that were originally owned by the Oilers at some point:
- William Carrier (2013, 57th overall): The Los Angeles Kings traded this pick along with a third-round pick (which the Oilers actually got back and picked Slepyshev with), and a fourth-round pick to the Oilers for a second-round pick (used to pick Valentin Zykov). The Oilers then traded this pick to St. Louis for a third pick and two fourth-round picks, only one of whom played a single NHL game (Bogdan Yakimov).
- Ivan Barbashev (2014, 33rd overall): The Oilers traded this pick along with Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson and a fourth-round pick to St. Louis for David Perron and a third-round pick.
- Matthew Barzal (2015, 16th overall): As I am sure you are aware, the Oilers traded this pick along with a second-round pick to the New York Islanders for Griffin Reinhart…possibly one of the worst trades in franchise history.
Defencemen
Oscar Klefbom (2011, 19th overall) – Evan Bouchard (2018, 10th overall)
Darnell Nurse (2013, seventh overall) – John Marino (2015, 154th overall)
Erik Gustafsson (2012, 93rd overall) – Vincent Desharnais (2016, 183rd overall)
Philip Broberg (2019, eighth overall)
Drafting defence has actually been pretty decent for the Oilers, as the above list doesn’t include Ethan Bear or Caleb Jones, both every day NHLers.
Unfortunately, only two of the above players still remain with the Oilers. Oscar Klefbom was the Oilers #1 defenceman until he suffered career ending injuries, while John Marino refused to sign with the Oilers and was subsequently traded for a sixth-round pick.
Erik Gustafsson, Vincent Desharnais, and Philip Broberg all left as free agents, although at the very least the Oilers received a second-round pick as compensation for Broberg since he was a restricted free agent.
There are still some defencemen that were picked with Oilers picks that could be considered for the above roster:
- Jonas Siegenthaler (2015, 57th overall): The Oilers initially acquired this pick from Montreal in exchange for Jeff Petry, and then traded it with a third- and seventh-round pick to the Rangers for Cam Talbot and seventh-round pick (Ziyat Paigin). So probably worth it.
- Jordan Harris (2018, 71st overall): The Oilers traded this pick and a fifth-round pick to Montreal for a second-round pick that became Olivier Rodrigue. Since Rodrigue does appear later (spoiler alert), it could still be considered a good trade depending on how Rodrigue’s career goes.
- Brock Faber (2020, 45th overall): The Oilers traded this pick along with Sam Gagner and another second-round pick (Aatu Raty) to Detroit for Ryan Kuffner and Andreas Athanasiou. Not a great trade, but the argument can be made that the COVID-19 pandemic ended up being the thing that scuttled it from being an ok one. But man would Faber look good.
- Maverick Lamoureux (2022, 29th overall): The Oilers traded this pick along with a third- and second-round pick to get Arizona to take Zack Kassian’s contract. The Oilers did receive a first-round pick as well though, which they eventually ended up trading the player picked (Reid Schaeffer) to acquire Mattias Ekholm. So while Lamoureux has potential, the Oilers win this “trade” for sure.
- Lane Hutson (2022, 62nd overall): The Oilers traded this pick along with William Lagesson and a seventh-round pick to acquire Brett Kulak. So like the Lamoureux trade, this isn’t necessarily a bad one considering Kulak is an important part of the team, albeit much less so than Ekholm. Also, Hutson looks to have higher potential than Lamoureux, so that makes it sting a little bit more.
Goalies
Stuart Skinner (2017, 78th overall)
Olivier Rodrigue (2018, 62nd overall)
Eemil Vinni (2024, 64th overall)
Stuart Skinner is the current starter for the Oilers, and Olivier Rodrigue as impressed in the AHL. Eemil Vinni was selected this past draft and was the highest ranked goalie of the draft, so he certainly seems like a solid pick at this time.
There is one goalie that the Oilers lost out on due to a trade: Jesper Wallstedt (2020, 20th overall). The now top goaltending prospect was up for grabs when the Oilers traded the pick to Minnesota in exchange for the next pick (Xavier Bourgeault), and a third-round pick (Luca Munzenberger). This ranks among the worst trade downs made by the Oilers, with the trade down of the pick that became Zach Parise for Marc-Antoine Pouliot.
Is this a viable team?
While the high end talent is great, that isn’t necessarily surprising given the high picks the Oilers had. The forward depth (or lack thereof) shows that the Oilers haven’t hit too much on later round picks in that area. The defence and goaltending seems to be a different story, and if that trend continues the Oilers future should still be pretty bright for the remainder of the McDrai window.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
