Ranking the Oilers’ 4 Biggest Offseason Gambles

The Edmonton Oilers did plenty of the former this offseason, but almost every major move came with a condition attached. Ryan Shea can replace some of Darnell Nurse’s minutes if his breakout was real. Mike Babcock can improve the team if his coaching methods translate after years away from an NHL bench. Frederik Andersen, Tristan Jarry and Devon Levi can stabilize the crease if at least one becomes dependable enough to trust when the games matter most.

General manager Stan Bowman created flexibility and attacked obvious weaknesses rather than bringing back essentially the same team. That deserves credit, but Edmonton did not purchase certainty. It purchased possibilities.

For a team still built around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl winning immediately, the margin for those possibilities to go wrong is much smaller than it would be for a rebuilding club. Here are the four biggest gambles Edmonton made, ranked by the potential damage if they fail.

4. Ryan Shea’s 5-Year Contract Bets on One Breakout

Ryan Shea might eventually make his contract look inexpensive. The gamble is that Edmonton paid him as though last season already proved that will happen.

Shea signed a five-year deal carrying a $4 million average annual value after producing six goals and 35 points in 80 games for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He also posted a plus-30 rating and averaged 18:53, transforming his market value after entering the season on a $900,000 contract.

The concern is not that Shea played well. It is how little NHL evidence exists before that breakout.

He totaled six points across his first 70 NHL games before jumping to 35 last season. Edmonton therefore committed $20 million to a 29-year-old defenseman whose strongest season represented a dramatic departure from everything that came before it.

Bowman believes there was substance behind the improvement. During his July comments, he praised Shea’s mobility and described his penalty killing as among the league’s best last season.

Those qualities can survive even if the offence regresses. Shea does not have to produce another 35 points to justify $4 million if he moves the puck efficiently, kills penalties and handles reliable second- or third-pair minutes.

That is why this ranks only fourth. The term is risky, but the cap hit is manageable enough that Edmonton could survive Shea becoming merely an average NHL defenceman. A rising salary cap should also make $4 million less restrictive deeper into the agreement.

The bad outcome would be discovering that 2025-26 was a one-year spike rather than a new baseline. Five years becomes much more uncomfortable if Shea slips back toward replacement-level results while Edmonton is still trying to maximize the final prime seasons of its core. It is a bet, just not the one most capable of ruining the season.

3. Mike Babcock Must Make a High-Stakes Comeback Work

Hiring Babcock was never going to qualify as a safe choice. The Oilers could have hired a coach whose primary questions involved systems, lineup deployment or playoff experience. Instead, they selected someone whose return to the league immediately became one of the most scrutinized coaching stories in hockey.

Babcock resigned from the Columbus Blue Jackets before coaching a regular-season game in 2023 following controversy surrounding interactions with players and requests involving personal phone photos. Before Edmonton officially hired him, the NHL conducted another review and determined there was no current basis to restrict his employment.

That cleared the path for the Oilers. It did not eliminate the risk.

Babcock is also returning to an NHL bench after years away from actually coaching games at this level. His last NHL game behind the bench came during his Toronto Maple Leafs tenure in 2019, even though Columbus briefly hired him four years later. Edmonton is asking him to return directly into one of the league’s most demanding jobs.

The Oilers do not have the luxury of giving a new coach several seasons to establish a culture. McDavid, Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Mattias Ekholm and other veterans are trying to win now, which means Babcock must create results without disrupting a dressing room that has already experienced significant coaching turnover.

McDavid and Draisaitl have publicly supported the hire. McDavid called Babcock a “perfect fit” and emphasized that the veteran coach already knows exactly what he expects his teams to look like.

That endorsement matters because Edmonton’s stars will determine whether the relationship works. Babcock’s demanding style becomes an asset if the roster responds to it and a problem if players begin tuning it out.

THW’s previous Babcock questions correctly identified his return as one of Edmonton’s defining uncertainties. He has talked about creating greater organizational depth, making supporting players important and building a team that is prepared every night. If that translates into a more balanced lineup, the hiring could look inspired.

If the same concerns surrounding communication and player relationships resurface, Edmonton will have introduced unnecessary instability into a championship window that already has enough pressure attached to it.

The Oilers could fire a coach more easily than they could escape a bad long-term player contract, which limits the financial downside. The cost of a failed season under the wrong coach would be much harder to recover.

2. Trading Darnell Nurse Left Edmonton Betting on a Committee

Moving Nurse was easy to understand financially. Replacing what he actually did on the ice is more complicated.

Edmonton traded Nurse to the San Jose Sharks on July 1 for Shakir Mukhamadullin and prospect Zack Sharp. Most importantly, the Oilers moved the entire $9.25 million annual cap hit rather than retaining salary on a contract that runs through 2029-30.

That flexibility changed what Edmonton could do elsewhere. It helped create room for Shea and other additions while removing one of the largest contracts on the roster. The gamble is that there was no established top-four defenceman coming back in the Nurse trade.

Mukhamadullin is 24 and intriguing, but he has played only 83 NHL games. Shea is coming off his first breakout season. Connor Murphy is dependable defensively, but he is 33 and has never been asked to replace the total workload Nurse carried in Edmonton.

Nurse averaged 20:58 per game last season. He played at even strength, killed penalties, handled physical matchups and could absorb additional minutes when injuries changed Edmonton’s pairings.

His contract made him an obvious target for criticism because his play never consistently matched a $9.25 million cap hit. That does not mean those minutes simply disappear when the contract does. Edmonton is replacing Nurse by committee.