One Edmonton Oiler who doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, but is starting to show his potential is Matthew Savoie. He is currently riding a three-game point streak just when the Oilers need depth most. Leon Draisaitl is out for the season and the Oilers are fighting to stay in a playoff spot.
In a year of outstanding rookies, where Matthew Schaefer is likely to take home the Calder, Beckett Sennecke, and Ivan Demidov are also putting up terrific numbers, Savoie won’t get much attention in his capacity as a rookie. He sits 12th on the list of rookie scoring, but I would argue that he has a higher ceiling than some of the names before him on that list. He is a hard worker with a scoring touch and a good sense for playmaking.
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Savoie’s stats and career path
Savoie was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres ninth overall in the 2022 NHL draft after an impressive 90 points in 65 games with the WHL’s Winnipeg Ice. He spent two more seasons in the WHL and made his NHL debut in 2023, only ever playing one game with the team that drafted him. Savoie was traded to the Oilers in the summer of 2024 in exchange for Ryan McLeod and Tyler Tullio. He played one season in Bakersfield last year before becoming an NHL rookie this year. Here are some of his career stats:
| Season | League | Team | GP | Goals | Assists | Points |
| 2019-20 | CSSHL U18 | RINK Hockey Academy Prep | 22 | 31 | 40 | 71 |
| 2020-21 | USHL | Dubuque Fighting Saints | 34 | 21 | 13 | 38 |
| 2021-22 | WHL | Winnipeg Ice | 65 | 35 | 55 | 90 |
| 2022-23 | WHL | Winnipeg Ice | 62 | 38 | 57 | 95 |
| 2023-24 | WHL | Wenatchee Wild/Moose Jaw Warriors | 34 | 30 | 41 | 71 |
| 2024-25 | AHL | Bakersfield Condors | 66 | 19 | 35 | 54 |
| 2025-26 | NHL | Edmonton Oilers | 69 | 11 | 17 | 28 |
Though Savoie was hindered by injuries in his last season in the WHL, he averaged over two points per game.
One thing that I didn’t know about Savoie is that, according to Wikipedia, he applied for exceptional status as a 15-year-old, but was turned down. For those that don’t know, a player can apply for exceptional status from Hockey Canada to play major hockey as a 15-year-old, which is a year earlier than is usually allowed. It made me wonder how many players have applied for exceptional status and not get approved, probably quite a few.
Was the McLeod-Savoie swap A good trade?
Probably the biggest question on your mind when you think of Matthew Savoie is: was the trade for Ryan McLeod worth it? As of right now, it looks like a bad trade. McLeod has looked excellent in Buffalo since that trade, putting up 53 points last year and on pace for 59 points this year.
McLeod plays centre between Jack Quinn and generally Jason Zucker, sometimes Zach Benson. This should be another sour point for the Edmonton faithful as McLeod isn’t really being propped up by excellent linemates; he’s anchoring the second line, made up of other young players, on the fourth best team in the league. You can’t help but feel happy for him, but it would be great if he could have done that for the Oilers. So many players have had bad years in Edmonton either before or after finding success with another team.
As much as this trade looks bad right now, Savoie is still on the rise and we don’t know how far he can go yet. I suspect he can be a 60 to 80 point guy, in which case the McLeod trade will probably look pretty good. The question is, will that be next year or in three to five years? A lot can change in three years, and if the Oilers aren’t challenging for the Stanley Cup anymore then it would have been great to hold onto McLeod while they were contenders.
Savoie’s recent success
Savoie is currently riding a three-game point streak and has 10 points in his last 11 games, on pace for 33 points on the season.
With Draisaitl now out for the rest of the season, it tentatively looks like Kris Knoblauch is planning to split up the first line (no one is sure what Knoblauch will do until seven minutes after it happens). In the most recent game against the San Jose Sharks, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was dropped to the second line and he brought up Savoie to play with Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman. For an NHL rookie to play 15 games on a line with McDavid is kind of like a Cessna pilot sitting in the lap of an F-22 pilot while he performs a triple inverted hammerhead. There will be no better time in his life to prove his worth.
Savoie’s underlying on-ice statistics could use some work; most of them are just slightly below the 50% mark, but it is difficult to have really good on-ice statistics in a bottom-six role as you don’t get a lot of ice time and are often playing with a lower caliber of players. I will be the first to admit, despite how much time I spend inspecting them, on-ice underlying metrics do not capture the heart of the player. It will be interesting to see what these metrics say at the end of the season, if he spends the rest of the season with McDavid.
The future for Savoie
I believe that Savoie will be a certified second line winger on most NHL teams. Will we see Savoie take the place of Kasperi Kapanen on the second line with Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin next year? That second line with Kapanen is statistically the second most dominant line on the team, with a ridiculous 80% GF%, 12 goals for, and only three against.
The only line better than them? Draisaitl with Podkolzin and Savoie with an 85.7% GF%, six goals, for and only one against. It is the best line in the league in that category, over 100 minutes played. Admittedly that’s not enough time to be conclusive, but it’s not nothing either.
Do we see Savoie make the permanent jump to the second line next year? What do you think his points cap is? Let us know in the comments!
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