Another year, another concerning start. It wouldn’t be a true Edmonton Oilers start to the season without an ever-growing list of complaints and concerns around the team and its performance. This year, it is largely centred around the coaching strategy and systems that seem to be hampering the offensive potential of the team.
The Oilers, with all their offensive talent, are boring to watch and cannot score. This is contributing to a mediocre performance, starting the season with a 6–6–4 record.
We’ve now passed the one month point on the 2025–26 season. Enough time for us to make some conclusions on the aforementioned challenges and concerns with the roster and play. But, this is also plenty of time to form some opinions on the players’ performances. With a high amount of roster turnover in the skater positions, there are bound to be growing pains as the new group learns how to gel with each other. Even members of the core can struggle in this adjustment period.
We wanted to gauge the feelings out there in Oil Country on some of the players on this season’s roster. This week, we took to X to ask the fans who has been the biggest surprise, good or bad, on the roster thus far.
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Regula becomes a regular
Puns aside, Alec Regula’s rise into becoming a regular in the Oilers’ lineup has been one of the few positive storylines around the team this season. Originally claimed off of waivers last season, Regula never played a game as he recovered from an injury. Despite this, the team spoke highly of him and gave him a two-year contract extension without ever seeing him play in the organization.
For 2025–26, expectations were low and Regula was mostly pencilled in with the defensive depth in Bakersfield heading into training camp. But very quickly, he showed he belonged in a bigger role.
Regula ended up making the opening night roster, in part due to an injury to Jake Walman opening up a spot, but also as a result of his strong play in the preseason. His defensive IQ, combined with a great talent at transition play and passing up the ice, impressed many and has surprised plenty of fans, who did not expect the defender to make an impact this quickly.
A solid portion of the voters also feel this way, though Regula did finish third in the voting, as 22.9% deemed him to be the biggest surprise in this early season.
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The inseason signing fitting in well
Jack Roslovic was not with the Oilers in training camp or preseason. In fact, the season had technically started before he was signed. If we refer back to the first game of the season when Elliotte Friedman broke the signing during the intermission panels. Nevertheless, Roslovic has spent the past month working his way into the lineup, now to a point where he looks like the best offseason addition.
Roslovic’s tenacious playstyle has given the team a boost on the ice in some otherwise dull periods. With three goals and eight points in his 14 games, he sits fifth on the team in scoring, the highest out of anyone not in the main core of the Oilers. His ice time has continuously risen since making his debut, going from approximately 13 minutes per game in his first few games up to an average nearing 19 minutes in the most recent five games.
He has a track record of being a scoring depth forward. Roslovic has hit the 20-goal mark twice and is regularly nearing 40 points in seasons. But we were unsure what he would bring to an already deep Oilers forward core, and if he would even remain on the roster once some injured players returned to the lineup.
The winner of this week’s poll as the biggest surprise of this young season is Roslovic, receiving 48.2% of the votes.
New deal yet to pay off for Trent Frederic
The Oilers front office was under plenty of scrutiny this past offseason, and one of the major moves leading to that was the monster contract extension given to trade deadline acquisition Trent Frederic. After barely seeing any of him after the trade as he recovered from an ankle injury suffered while he was still in Boston, and what we did see of him in the playoffs was underwhelming as he was still dealing with the after effects of said injury, the organization gave him an eight-year contract extension.
This placed high expectations on Frederic, who has been a 18-goal scorer with 40 points in the past. Those have not even been remotely met so far. The winger we thought would be a productive and physical addition to the depth, a possible replacement for Evander Kane, has been largely invisible with just one goal in 16 games.
Frederic may still be dealing with the effects of his ankle sprain. Those are notoriously slow to heal and could explain the reduced footspeed and difficulty engaging physically if he is not yet back at 100% strength in the affected ankle. But it is certainly not a great first impression this early on in a deal that was heavily criticized at the time of signing.
For this, Frederic’s performance has been the second biggest surprise of the season according to Oilers fans, unfortunately, not in a good way. 25.3% of voters chose him.
We know exactly what to expect at this point from Stuart Skinner
The jury is still out on whether or not this is a good or bad thing, but Stuart Skinner came in last place in this week’s poll as just 3.6% of voters chose him as the biggest surprise of this season, good or bad. On one hand, maybe his entirely average performance so far leaves him out of the spotlight a bit more than in the past. On the other hand, his inconsistent and unpredictable nature leading to bad goals and momentum swings is entirely expected at this point and no longer comes as a surprise. The latter seems more likely.
Last night’s four goals against have skewed the numbers a little bit, but until this point, he had been playing around a 2.5 goals against average and .900 save percentage with 3.5 goals saved above expected according to Moneypuck. Perfectly serviceable numbers.
But as usual, and likely as expected, his play has not helped the team in the ways that they need from the goalie. The skaters are not helping, with constant giveaways and blown defensive coverage that can then be used to easily exploit his weaknesses. The problems with the team’s play are greater than just Skinner right now.
Who do you think is the biggest surprise thus far, good or bad? Drop a comment down below!
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