Oilers Looking To Add Forward Depth

The Oilers have been hit with a rash of injuries to start the season, especially up front.  However, their back end remains relatively healthy.  To that end, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported in the latest Saturday Headlines segment (video link) that they are looking at making a lateral move to add some depth up front for potentially one of their extra defensemen.

Less than two months ago, GM Stan Bowman spoke about how important it was to start the season with ample cap space.  At the time, they had close to $5MM in cap space.  Now, thanks to injuries, they’re already operating in LTIR.

On top of being without goaltender Frederik Andersen and defenseman Alec Regula, the Oilers are down five forwards already.  Matthew Savoie is on LTIR while Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jason Dickinson, and Mattias Janmark are on regular IR.  Meanwhile, Zach Hyman is out for a couple of weeks, though he has yet to land on IR himself.  Needless to say, their forward depth is already being tested with two promotions already from the minors (Max Jones and Josh Samanski) after carrying 16 forwards on their season-opening roster (including injured players).

Edmonton has a clear-cut top five on the back end, all of whom make at least $4MM and are signed for at least the next three years.  It seems fair to assume that if they were to move a blueliner, it wouldn’t be one of those five.

That leaves Shakir Mukhamadullin, Ty Emberson, and Spencer Stastney as potential candidates to be moved.  Mukhamadullin is in his first season with the team after being acquired as part of the Darnell Nurse trade this summer.  The 24-year-old has played limited minutes out of the gate, averaging just 11:32 per game in two outings while being scratched for the other.  He’s in the first season of a two-year deal worth $1.75MM per season and will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights when it ends.  Accordingly, acquiring him wouldn’t be as much of a short-term move as the other two would be.

Emberson is in his third season with Edmonton and spent the last two as close to a full-time player on their third pairing.  He picked up a dozen points along with 106 blocks and 107 hits in 15:31 per game of playing time across 72 contests last season but has been scratched for two of the first three games this season.  The 26-year-old is a pending unrestricted free agent and carries a $1.3MM price tag.

As for Stastney, he was brought in midseason last year for a third-round pick and played fairly regularly after that, getting into 36 games.  Between that and his time in Nashville, he had enough of a track record to secure a one-year, $1.575MM contract to avoid arbitration back in July.  However, Stastney appears to have fallen to eighth on the depth chart so if there’s a fit for the 26-year-old that also brings an affordable forward back, it’s probably worth exploring.

With Edmonton in LTIR, they have enough flexibility to bring up replacement players as needed so a move like this isn’t a must-make.  However, given how deep they’ve already had to go into their forward depth, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see what else could be out there to upgrade some of their current options.  With a few teams likely sniffing around the depth defense market already, there could be some possibilities on the trade front for Bowman to consider over the next little while.