4 Oilers primed for bounce back seasons

Tristan Jarry could be one of the easiest bounce-back pick on the board for me because I refuse to believe the goalie we saw in those 19 games with the Oilers is the goalie he actually is at this point. Was he terrible? Of course. An .858 save percentage and 3.86 goals-against average after what was a very expensive trade is a tough look no matter how much lipstick we put on the pig, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. But I also don’t think those 19 games are the end of the road either. The guy came over mid-season, the team in front of him couldn’t play defence to save its life, he got hurt, and then the whole situation stayed a mess before he ever really had a chance to settle in. I’m not excusing his play, but it does offer a reminder at why I’m not ready to call last year the end of the line.

The truth is that Jarry’s track record is way better than what we got after the Skinner trade. Before he got here, he went 9-3-1 with a .909 save percentage and 2.66 goals-against average with the Penguins, and his career numbers still sit at 170 wins, a .907 save percentage, and a 2.80 goals-against average over 326 games. Maybe I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, but looks more like a tough stretch than a new normal, and thinking this way is a hell of a lot more helpful than the 19-game train wreck we watched. I’m not saying Jarry is suddenly going to turn into Dominik Hasek in his prime — it would be nice, though — but I would be legitimately surprised if he isn’t better in his second go-around as an Oiler. A full camp, a fresh start, and hopefully a team that remembers defending is allowed should help a lot. Then again, I also said the same thing about Jack Campbell.

ISAAC HOWARD

Isaac Howard is the third guy I’m betting on to have a much better year, even if his rookie season in Edmonton didn’t really match the hype that followed the trade that brought him to town. The Ice Man only popped two goals and five points in 29 NHL games, which felt like a tease after dreaming about what he might bring to the Oilers. That said, I also think we have to be reasonable about what we’re talking about here with the kid, and whether we expected too much too soon. He was 22 years old, getting his first taste of the NHL, and trying to figure out how to play at this level on a team that doesn’t exactly have much patience for learning on the fly. That’s not an easy spot for a young player, especially when the thing he does best is the hardest thing to do in the league.

But even though he didn’t shoot the lights out with the Oilers last season, the part that keeps me excited is what he was able to do in Bakersfield. Howard scored 24 goals and 50 points in 47 games with the Condors, which tells me the shot and offensive instincts are real and can work at the professional level. The challenge, of course, is figuring out how to make sure the rest of his game good enough to keep him in the NHL when the puck isn’t going in. Right now, Howard still feels a little bit like a one-pitch guy with that shot of his, and while that pitch is a good one, the Oilers need more than “wait for a scoring chance and rip it” if he’s going to stick around. Even so, I truly believe there’s a 15-to-20-goal season in there if he gets the minutes and the trust to grow into the job. Maybe it takes a little bit of time, but I’m not ready to bail on a young shooter because his first 29 NHL games were less than we hoped.

JAKE WALMAN

Outside of Jarry, Jake Walman is arguably the guy on this list that the Oilers need to bounce back the most. With Darnell Nurse gone to San Jose and year one of Walman’s seven-year, $49-million deal kicking in, this is not exactly the season for him to be a question mark. Last season was weird from start to finish for the guy, and we can’t have that again in 2026-27. To start, he was banged up, never really seemed to get all the way right when he returned, and finished with only eight goals and 20 points in 53 games while sporting a brutal minus-17. That’s not the season anyone wanted from a guy the Oilers just bet on in a big way, but I also don’t think it’s hard to see why the team believes he can be part of solution either. Walman can skate, he has a great shot, he moves the puck well, and when he’s healthy and playing his best, he looks like the kind of modern defenceman every team would love to have.

The problem, obviously, is that the Oilers need him on the ice. They don’t need him to be kind of healthy. They don’t need him playing through something and looking like a fraction of himself. Instead, and on a nightly basis, they need Walman playing, hitting, shooting, and eating the kind of minutes that open up now that Nurse is no longer here to throw over the boards. That’s a tall order for a guy who hasn’t played a full season at this level. His career stats, 40 goals and 111 points in 320 games, show the offence is there to be had, and the tools are obvious enough that a bounce back doesn’t feel like some insane ask. If Walman stays healthy, I think he can be a lot closer to the defenceman the Oilers paid for than the bandaid version we got from him last year. The contract means expectations are going up, but the good news is that Walman absolutely has the tool box to hit that bar if he can figure out how to keep himself playing.