For the first time in a long time, the Edmonton Oilers will be heading into the new season with some cap space to work with. Currently, about $4.725 million worth. GM Stan Bowman recently expressed some excitement at this prospect, as he told insider Bob Stauffer on Oilers Now.
“That’s more than enough. You don’t even need that much to start the year. It’s just hard when you start the year with like $800,000. Then you get one injury, and you’re already worried about LTI. We’re not in that position. I think we’re going to be able to pivot if there are opportunities that come up.
“The first two years that I was here, we had no space at all… Very handcuffed to what you could do. And that’s tough because opportunities come up through the year… But we weren’t set up to do that.”
Oilers GM looking to add a player up front
Bowman went on to admit that it isn’t on defense or in goal that he’ll be looking to use that cap room, but rather up front.
And with that, Stauffer speculated that Bowman will quite possibly be looking at trading for a center at some point.
I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility at some point they do add a centre. Whether it’s a fourth line right-shot centre, whether it’s a guy that can play center/right wing, we will see. You never know. They’re going to have cap space.
Of course, a lot of that speculation is dependent on two things:
1. What happens with rookie centre Josh Samanski? Does he make the Oilers out of camp this time around, or get sent to the AHL? “He’s going to have to impress the coach (new bench boss Mike Babcock),” Stauffer said of Samanski.
2. Do Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl get paired on the same line? If that’s the case, David Staples of the Edmonton Journal says the need is obvious.
“If I had to bet, it’s that the Oilers are going to need a centre, at least if talk of Babcock playing Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl more often on the same line comes to pass.”
But if each superstar pivots his own trio, they would seem to be pretty well set down the middle, and that forward that Bowman is keeping an eye out for would be on the wing.
All of this will start coming into focus through the first couple of months of the 2026-27 season.