We all love Mattias Ekholm, veteran defenceman and hockey hero of the Edmonton Oilers, the king of the north, the Viking of the blueline.
He’s a top Oilers d-man for sure. In fact, at times in the past few seasons he’s been Edmonton’s best d-man.
That said, as a fan of the team before I’m a fan of any one player, I can’t say I love the idea of Edmonton extending Ekholm’s contract just now. I hadn’t been thinking it was a possibility but this week on Oilers Now, Edmonton’s top NHL insider Bob Stauffer, the team’s master of whisperers, shared this nugget: “It wouldn’t surprise me if the Oilers extended Matthias Ekholm, maybe even this summer.”‘
When Stauffer mentioned it, the ideas sounded OK enough, mainly because I’m like almost all of the rest of you: I admire Ekholm both as an individual and as a player.
Acquiring him from Nashville was one of the two or three best moves former GM Ken Holland made with the Oilers, that and signing Zach Hyman and giving second chances to players like Evander Kane and Corey Perry, even as other NHL teams were too cautious and/or sanctimonious to consider the same.
Ekholm has been a stalwart since his arrival in Edmonton, teaming up with Evan Bouchard on the team’s top-pairing to help lead the squad to two Stanley Cup Finals.
But time and injury aren’t the friends of a single NHL player. Time and injury catch up to all of them. We got a taste of that with Ekholm this season. He played as well as ever in the first half of the season, but after a series of core injury issues, his game wasn’t the same.
After a rough stretch of games where he leaked Grade A shots against, he was out for weeks in the final part of the season. When he came back in the playoffs, he was OK in general, but iffy in key moments, especially against Florida as the series went along. Ekholm wasn’t alone in playing marginal hockey as that series unfolded, but he wasn’t the exception to the general rule either.
When I first heard Stauffer’s musing about Ekholm maybe getting a contract extension this summer — he’s got one year left on a deal that pays him $6.25 million this year — my first thought was that the Oilers had best wait to see how Ekholm recovers and performs this year before committing to the player.
That notion has only been reinforced after looking at how other players aged 36 and up did in the NHL this past season.
This past year, Ekholm was 34 and, when healthy, played at a peak or near peak level.
Next year in the final year of his deal, we can’t be sure how he’ll play at age 35.
But in 2026-27, the first year of any new deal he might sign, he’ll be 36, and what we can say with certainty is it’s rare for 36-year-old d-men to play strong two-way hockey at the NHL level. Most of them at that age have been so slowed by age and injury that they’ve retired. Only two or three still play top level hockey.
In 2024-25, there were just eight 35-year-old d-men in the NHL. Of those, just two, Chris Tanev and Ryan McDonagh, played at full season at near peak levels of play. Two others, Jared Spurgeon and Drew Doughty, played well but were out with injury much of the year. The others — Luke Schenn, Brendan Smith, Ian Cole and Robert Bortuzzo — were OK-to-iffy.
As mentioned, Ekholm will be 35 next year. One hopes he can be like Tanev or McDonagh and thrive all year as a two-way player. But the odds start to work against him now in the final year of his contract.
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If he were to sign a new deal, it would be for when he’s 36 and possibly older, if the Oilers gave him term. Just eight d-men 36-years and older played in the NHL last year and just two of them, Brent Burns and Kris Letang, were Top 4 d-men on their teams.
The odds start to get daunting if you’re counting on a 36-year-old d-man to play solid two-way hockey in a Top 4 role.
Of course Ekholm is an individual. He’s a remarkable player and person. Perhaps he can’t defy those odds. But no player is a good bet to do so, even as some few pull it off.
If the Oilers were to extend him, I’d compare him to Jeff Petry, 37 last season, signing with Florida, another top team with major salary cap issues. Petry signed a deal for $775,000, with performance bonus money of $250,000. That’s the kind of sober bet a top team with Stanley Cup aspirations makes on d-men over the age of 35.
Now if Ekholm were to crush it this year as a two-way player that equation might change, but not until then.