Matt Savoie. Ike Howard. David Tomasek. Atro Leppanen. Alec Regula. Roby Jarventie. Samuel Jonsson.
There’s no shortage of young talent in the Edmonton Oilers organization, some of which we’ll be seeing in Friday evening’s rookie game against the Flames prospects.
We’ve just finished up our annual Cult of Hockey prospects lists. I started out thinking it was a somewhat underwhelming bunch. Top of mind was Oilers captain Connor McDavid’s half-demand, half-complaint about the Oilers after the team lost again in the Final to Florida.
“Everyone’s got to find a new level,” McDavid said of the coming season. “It’s not like we have a ton of cap room and we got a long list of highly touted prospects knocking on the door.”
But having dug into the background of Edmonton’s various prospect players, I’m much more optimistic now than I was a month ago about one or two or three of these players making major impacts with the Oilers, maybe even one or two of them as early as this year.
The key is for these players to get opportunity, then seize that opportunity, something we have not seen a lot of in recent years with the Oilers. It took years even for a player as talented as Evan Bouchard to work his way into the line-up, let alone the Top 4 on defence.
Philip Broberg evidently got fed up of waiting and pounced on an offer sheet from St. Louis. Ryan McLeod got moved to Buffalo, in part because the Oilers needed to dump salary, in part because he failed to develop in a way that management deemed necessary. It also seemed at times that Dylan Holloway was shorter on opportunity in Edmonton than he was on talent.
If the Oilers are going to flourish in the next few years, players like Savoie, Howard, Tomasek, Leppanen, Jarventiue, Jonsson and others will be needed to take on key roles, something that Oilers hockey boss Stan Bowman is well aware of, as he made clear on an interview Thursday with Overdrive 1050 in Toronto.
Said Bowman: “I am pretty excited to see how a lot of these new players come in and give our team a little bit of a different look.”
The key, Bowman said, is for new players to grow into bigger roles as the season progresses. something the 2024-25 Oilers lacked. “We’re going to have to work with them and be patient but also help them come along so that they can add something to the mix. I think that’s probably something we didn’t have last year. We didn’t see a lot of growth from within, so the players who were good in November were good again in April.”
Bowman continued: “You can certainly supplement that by adding new players down the stretch and that’s something we’re going to be focused on as well. But you don’t want that to be your only way of getting better. You’d like to see some growth from within your team. ”
Roster
My take
1. I didn’t get the sense that Bowman’s mention of a lack of internal growth last year was a criticism of coach Kris Knoblauch. It was more an explanation of how experienced and veteran the team was last year. But I do see Bowman throwing down the gauntlet to some extent with his comment. He’s setting the bar for the coaches and players. Now we see if they can clear it.
2. On the Oilers last year, the one solid example of a player stepping up and improving his game through the seen was Vancouver Canucks reject Vasily Podkolzin. Podz became a fixutre on Leon Draisaitl’s wing and his play peaked in the playoffs, where he had a number of high impact performances.
3. Other prospects, however, were up and down. Ty Emberson had a period of play in mid-season where he performed at a high level, but then played his way out of the line-up in the playoffs. Noah Philp, I will suggest, might well have been a better bet at fourth line centre in the playoffs than Mattias Janmark, but his chances were limited in Edmonton. The opportunity didn’t seem to be there, nor was it there for Savoie, who got into just four NHL games.
4. This year the coaching staff would do well to see exactly what they have in Savoie and Tomasek, and also leave the door open wide for Leppanen, an outstanding attacking d-man from Finland.
Ike Howard may also fight his way onto the roster. Philp is also well balanced to play a key role on the fourth line. Jarventie, coming off two years of injury, might also surprise.
For the Oilers to win, Bowman is absolutely right. He’ll need a few of these players to assume important roles as the season progresses. It’s an imperative for the Oilers and it’s likely Kris Knoblauch’s biggest challenge this year as coach, that and solving Edmonton’s issue with consistency in goal.
At the Cult of Hockey
STAPLES: Six year deal for Top 4 Oilers d-man, three years for rugged Russian, NHL insider suggests
Cult of Hockey prospect series 2025
Forwards: Matt Savoie (1st) Ike Howard (2nd), Maxim Berezkin (3rd), Josh Samanski (5th), Quinn Hutson (6th), William Nicholl (9th), Roby Jarventie (11th), Viljami Marjala (12th), Connor Clattenburg (13th), Tommy Lafreniere (14th). David Lewandowski (15th)
Dmen: Alec Regula (4th) Beau Akey (7th-tie) Atro Leppanen (10th) Paul Fischer (16th), Nikita Yevseyev (18th), Asher Barnett (19th)
Goalies: Samuel Jonsson (7th-tie), Nathaniel Day (17th), Eemil Vinni (20th)