This in from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on his 32 Thoughts podcast, his discussion of a major question built into the contract of new Edmonton Oilers attacker Jack Roslovic.
“You know, Rosljovic has a pretty interesting contract. On November 1st, which is about the time (Zach) Hyman comes back, I think it becomes a four-team trade list, right?
“They sound pretty excited about him. I think they want to keep him. The guy had 20 goals last year, five on five. But it’s almost like it’s a trial to see if everybody’s happy here. And I assume that the teams on that list are the teams that were also looking at them. But, you know, they got a lot of guys to figure out.”
roster Oct 13 2025
My take
1. On Oilers Now last week, team insider and host Bob Stauffer mentioned that Oilers GM Stan Bowman had his eyes on two free agents on July 1st, Andrew Mangiapane and Roslovic. He got Mangiapane, and now he’s got Roslovic.
It’s tempting to credit Stan Bowman with good work, and this was indeed good work on his part. But it’s more fair and accurate to note that good things happen to teams with Connor McDavid on them.
Of course, other GMs also had McDavid and didn’t always do such good work as Bowman, so there’s that.
2. How common are little tiny trade lists for players? Not common. It’s interesting that Roslovic wanted or was open to this out in his deal with the Oilers. But it also makes sense. There’s plenty of competition for jobs in Edmonton. If for whatever reasons Roslovic can’t fight his way past the competition to earn a job on one of the top three lines, why stay here for the rest of the year?
3. We will all recall the trouble that Jeff Skinner had last season finding a permanent spot in the line-up. There was plenty of the talk on the day of Skinner’s ill-fated signing (it will be forever linked to the loss of Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway) that Skinner would break into one of the top lines on the Oilers, that he would be a scoring winger to play with Leon Draisaitl. In the end, Skinner had a hard time making the team, let alone playing on a top two line.
In the end Skinner played just 111 minutes with Draisaitl and 139 minutes with McDavid at even strength.
4. Where does Roslovic slot in. It’s tempting to team up such a fast player with McDavid in order to create sheer terror in the opposition. Trent Frederic was OK against Calgary and good against Vancouver on the top line, so I’m not sure if we’ll see that move.
To start, I could see him on a line with Adam Henrique and David Tomasek, bumping Ike Howard into the the pressbox. Howard has looked OK in his first few games, but that line has yet to create a Grade A shot at even strength.
But I suspect that Matt Savoie will be bumped off the RNH line to the Henrique line, Howard will sit, with Roslovic playing with RNH and Andrew Mangiapane.
Just a guess.