Now that Edmonton Oilers GM Stan Bowman is done celebrating Team USA’s gold medal win as part of Bill Guerin’s management team in Milan, it’s time to get to work to reshape his NHL roster by the March 6 deadline.
With two hands tied behind Bowman’s back, with virtually no cap room and the patience in Oilers Nation wearing thin in the team’s window-to-win with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, along with 30-something wingers Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, along with a defence that is leaning older, too.
Bowman knows he needs a top 4 right-shot defenceman to play with Darnell Nurse, which would allow Jake Walman to take Brett Kulak’s slot as a left-shot on another pair with Ty Emberson. He could also use a third-line centre with more offensive juice than Adam Henrique.
When the Oilers sent Matt Savoie and his $887,000 AAV to Bakersfield last week, they cleared the space to activate Henrique off LTIR (undisclosed injury but possible broken hand). Accruing cap space in the next few days, they’ll have just enough to recall Savoie for Wednesday’s game in Anaheim, to kick off a three-game California trip. That would leave them with only a few thousand dollars on the cap, nickels and dimes, really, in the big picture, with 13 forwards and seven D on their roster, but winger Kasperi Kapanen is hurt. And the seventh defenceman is Alec Regula, on a conditioning stint in Bakersfield, but still counting against the cap.
If they also want to bring back impressive forward Josh Samanski from the farm, then we’re into some more financial gymnastics. Samanski had a good Olympics against the best players in the world, playing some with Draisaitl on the German team that made the quarter-finals. He also showed flashes in his five Oilers games (two assists, averaging about nine minutes) before going to Milan, that he’s close to being an NHLer. But to bring him back from the AHL, they will either have to send somebody else down to Bakersfield or make a trade.
Bowman has to pull several rabbits out of his hat to move failed free-agent signee Andrew Mangiapane and his two-year, $3.6 million AAV for cap relief. Clearly, they haven’t been able to trade him over the last six weeks or so. To move him now, they will likely have to add a draft pick sweetener because of the second year on the Mangiapane deal (they have a third-round asset at the 2026 draft) or take back a lesser bad contract in an even-up swap, which isn’t really palatable.
Right now, nobody is mildly knocking on the door to get Mangiapane, who was a healthy scratch for half the January games, never mind kicking it in. In a lot of ways, he’s much like Jeff Skinner last season, not a fit in the top six, not a defined role third liner.
The Edmonton Oilers’ Andrew Mangiapane (88) during third period NHL action against the Dallas Stars’ at Rogers Place, in Edmonton Tuesday Nov. 25, 2025.
If not finding another team for the swing and a miss free-agent signee Mangiapane last July 1, then Bowman is probably calling around on fourth-line winger Mattias Janmark ($1.45 million AAV), who has this year and next on his deal. Janmark has certainly been a good soldier for the last four years, a solid penalty-killer with his smarts and speed, also his tenaciousness. And while he can also play a defensive role in a top six late in a game with coach Kris Knoblauch using that card, there’s no scoring in the regular season. He has 272 shots over the last three seasons (193 games) and seven goals. Three goals over the past 122, and playing 12 ½ minutes a game.
And, it was talking fiscal numbers, Curtis Lazar at half Janmark’s money ($775,000) can also kill penalties.
Yes, they could waive either Mangiapane or Janmark to slide them to Bakersfield and save $1.15 million on their NHL cap. Whatever, it’s far from enviable fiscally for Bowman to make his team better going into these playoffs, where they could still win the Pacific, the NHL’s worst division, and get to the Western Conference final and the NHL’s Final Four. But, could they beat the NHL’s beast in Colorado or Minnesota with Quinn Hughes or a third straight year, knocking off Dallas?
With Connor McDavid and Draisaitl, Bowman is clearly in it to win it, now.
To add the much-needed right-shot defenceman in a deal (Chicago’s Connor Murphy, Philly’s Rasmus Ristolainen, Ottawa’s Artem Zub?), Bowman has to convince the trader to pick up 50 per cent of their contract. You can’t bring a third party into a transaction any longer to eat more in dollars like Oilers did in getting Henrique from the Ducks in 2024.
And then there’s the acquisition price for a veteran defenceman.
At the very least, he will likely have to give up a second-round pick this June for a rental defenceman, more from one with time left on his contract like Ristolainen. Or maybe he has to sacrifice one of his better young players. Maybe not Ike Howard, but Savoie or Samanski. Would they be in play?
The Oilers don’t have a 2026 first-rounder because they gave that up to San Jose to get Walman last year at the deadline. They do have a 2027 first-rounder.
And if Bowman also wants a third-line centre in the same deal as a defenceman?
Well, that’s almost surely a first-rounder and another pick or a good prospect. Like for, say, Murphy and centre Jason Dickinson in Chicago. Even for rentals. Henrique and fellow centre Sam Carrick fetched Anaheim a first in 2024 and a conditional fifth in 2025. It would have been a fourth-rounder to the Ducks in 2025 if the Oilers had won the Cup a few days earlier. They did not against Florida, as we all know.
This’ n that
With Calvin Pickard now in Bakersfield, the Oilers farm team loaned goalie Connor Ungar to ECHL. It’ll be Pickard and Matt Tomkins as the net tandem now. Youngsters Samuel Jonsson and Nathaniel Day are the tag-team on the Oilers’ Fort Wayne ECHL team.
Related
Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.