This in from the Edmonton Oilers, news that they have placed d-man Jake Walman on injured reserve.
As NHL Roster, an affiliate of Puckpedia, noted on social media, this move was made to create a short term roster spot for incoming forward Jack Roslovic.
Essentially it gives time for the Oilers to sort out their forward lines and d-man pairings without having to move out a forward just now to make roster space for Roslovic.
It’s not known how long Walman will be out, but he was back practicing with the team on Wednesday morning. Earlier this week he signed a new seven year, $7 million per year contract.
roster
My take
1. Walman is missed just now, even as I like new Oilers d-man Alec Regula just fine. Regula made a number of strong passing plays at Darnell Nurse’s side against Calgary. But he had trouble cleaning up for Nurse on a couple of goals against.
I see Regula as the leading candidate right now to play with Brett Kulak on the third-pairing. He’s much bigger than Troy Stecher and Ty Emberson and he looks to be at least as good a puck mover. If his defensive play is solid, he can help in that bottom pairing.
2. As I’ve said before, however, the best bet is to pair up Nurse with Walman. The two had great success last year in both the regular season (eight goals for, two against), and the playoffs (three goals for, one against).
Nurse
At first glance it’s also a major mystery why the Oilers simply didn’t go with Nurse and Walman as full-time playoff partners, based on their 80% Goals For Percentage in 114 regular season minutes in 2024-25.
Walman is keen to play the right side and he’s an adept player, so much so he’d be on the top pairing of about half of all NHL teams. Stan Bowman made a steal of deal getting him for a late first round pick, at least if the Oilers are able to sign up Walman.
As for Nurse, he now faces mission possible, should he choose to accept it: Bring his “A” game in the playoffs as often as he does in the regular season. He did so regularly in the 2024-25 season, his best as an NHLer.
He’s most likely to do so with Walman as his partner.
3. Against Calgary, Nurse struggled, so much so that many people pointed out his mistake in rushing the puck and losing it just inside the Calgary zone, kicking off the goal rush and Sequence of Pain on Caglary’s first goal, as a key moment in the game.
The list of critics includes Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch, who didn’t mention Nurse by name, but pointed out that turnover was a key mistake in Edmonton’s puck management issues late in the second period, after the team got up 3-0.
Said the coach: “The first goal is an unfortunate bounce in front of our net… Right before the goal, we had a turnover on the attack, and they come down and scored..;. Soon as we made it three zero, we got really sloppy with the puck. Before that, I thought we were outstanding with it, but that was definitely the turning point.”
Nurse’s mistake was also noted by Mike Kelly, a stats analyst for NHL.com, who wrote on Twitter about this kind of turnover just inside the o-zone blueline: “A 🚨Danger Zone🚨 turnover by the Oilers kickstarted the Flames comeback win last night.”
At the Cult of Hockey
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