With Connor McDavid<\/a> beginning his new two-year extension, it\u2019s fair to say that there is a sense of urgency for the Oilers.\u00a0 With that in mind, it\u2019s not surprising that they\u2019re looking for someone with a proven track record although Babcock\u2019s recent history makes his consideration stand out that much more.\u00a0 At this point, the risks are well-known and if they\u2019re still willing to hire him, they\u2019re banking on his success back with Detroit and Anaheim carrying the day to try to get Edmonton back to contention.<\/p>\n With the draft now less than three weeks away and offseason planning well underway, a hire needs to be in place in the near future.<\/p>\n Land A Goalie Upgrade<\/p>\n Last offseason, the thought was that they could once again get away with a Stuart Skinner<\/a>\u2013Calvin Pickard<\/a> tandem.\u00a0 After all, while the day-to-day was consistently inconsistent, overall, it was good enough to get them to the Stanley Cup Final in two straight years.\u00a0 It was a cheap tandem and that would allow them to spend on filling other holes.\u00a0 Bowman then took advantage of Utah\u2019s desire to move Connor Ingram<\/a>, adding him for future considerations to give them a third netminder with experience.<\/p>\n Jarry has two years left on his contract at a $5.375MM price tag.\u00a0 Between that and his performance, it\u2019s safe to say that he\u2019s not going to be traded.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Ingram is a pending unrestricted free agent.\u00a0 He can\u2019t be brought back to be the starter as that\u2019s a role he isn\u2019t really suited for.\u00a0 But Jarry can\u2019t be the starter either given how poorly he performed.<\/p>\n As a result, just months after trading for what he thought was a goalie upgrade, Bowman is going to have to make a move to upgrade on the upgrade.\u00a0 The free agent market has Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a> who would be a short-term solution but he\u2019s also coming off a rough year.\u00a0 Not many starters are available either so they may have to look at a bit of a short-term gamble, hoping that a netminder playing behind their defense could rebound.\u00a0 Buffalo has a surplus while Montreal will likely look to move Sam Montembeault<\/a> but Bowman surely will be looking to see what other options are out there.\u00a0 But after how badly things went between the pipes this season, last summer\u2019s history can\u2019t repeat itself here.<\/p>\n Keep A Rental<\/p>\n The Oilers made a pair of moves with Chicago to shore up their roster before the trade deadline, adding center Jason Dickinson<\/a> to strengthen the bottom six and Connor Murphy<\/a> to add a stabilizing defensive presence on the back end.\u00a0 They\u2019d undoubtedly like to keep both around.\u00a0 However, they only have around $14.5MM in cap space per PuckPedia<\/a> and several roster spots to fill, including a goalie.\u00a0 While keeping both would be nice, they may be limited to just keeping one.<\/p>\n At this point, it\u2019s evident that Edmonton\u2019s preference is to have Ryan Nugent-Hopkins<\/a> on the wing, allowing him to play higher up the depth chart.\u00a0 However, they\u2019ve had some challenges filling the third-line center role, often resulting in their plans for Nugent-Hopkins being scrapped.\u00a0 While Dickinson is unlikely to repeat the 22-goal, 35-point effort from 2023-24, he\u2019s a solid option to fill that spot if he stays.\u00a0 He\u2019s reliable defensively, can kill penalties, and play with a bit of an edge.\u00a0 However, given the overall dearth of options available down the middle in free agency, his market may be strong enough to beat the $4.25MM he made the last two years while getting a considerably longer-term deal as well.<\/p>\n Murphy, meanwhile, logged big minutes after being acquired, logging over 20 minutes a night which was well above his average with the Blackhawks before the swap.\u00a0 He served as an anchor on the penalty kill while stabilizing the second pairing.\u00a0 A right-shot defender, he\u2019ll certainly be in high demand if he makes it to the open market but at 33 years old, he won\u2019t be in a position to command the type of longer-term deal that Dickinson should be able to.\u00a0 On the other hand, the Oilers already have more than $32MM in commitments on the back end; re-signing Murphy would give them the most expensive defense corps in the NHL, barring other moves made around the league, of course.<\/p>\n Keeping both players would be great, but would make accomplishing their other objectives much more difficult.\u00a0 Accordingly, re-signing one out of two might have to suffice.<\/p>\n Add A Top-Six Forward<\/p>\n Given the firepower this team possesses, this might seem a little strange.\u00a0 However, they only had four forwards reach the 40-point mark in 2025-26 and they did try to fill this spot last summer when they signed Andrew Mangiapane<\/a> in a move that simply didn\u2019t work out.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Jack Roslovic<\/a>, who quietly put up 21 goals this season, seems likely to move on in free agency.\u00a0 Needless to say, there\u2019s a spot to be filled here.<\/p>\n In an ideal world, Vasily Podkolzin<\/a> and Matthew Savoie<\/a> continue their development while Isaac Howard<\/a> makes a legitimate push for a spot as well.\u00a0 If all of those things happened, they\u2019d probably be fine.\u00a0 But this is a veteran-laden team with a win-now mentality; they\u2019re probably not going to want to leave this to chance.\u00a0 While there aren\u2019t many top-line forwards in free agency this summer, there are more second-liners available.\u00a0 A chance to line up alongside one of McDavid or Leon Draisaitl<\/a> should be enough of a selling point to give Bowman some options, if they\u2019re still able to afford this after addressing their other areas.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a case to make that the defense needs to be shored up as well but it\u2019s possible Murphy re-signs which would probably suffice.\u00a0 Failing that, it could also be rejigged depending on what Darnell Nurse<\/a> wants to do, something that\u2019s entirely in his hands<\/a> now.\u00a0 While they\u2019re waiting to see if he\u2019s amenable to move, they should be setting their sights on lengthening their offense to take some of the pressure off their top players up front.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Sergei Belski-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The offseason has arrived for half of the league\u2019s teams that aren\u2019t taking part in the playoffs plus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,5,4,24,697],"class_list":["post-594830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmontonoilers","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-oilers","tag-pro-hockey-rumors-originals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116719701607504451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/tristan-jarry-oilers-200x300.jpg\")
<\/a>That move proved to be a shrewd one as he ultimately took over the backup role when Pickard struggled, then moved onto the starting job later in the season.\u00a0 But while that trade worked, the other one didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Skinner was eventually moved with Brett Kulak<\/a> and a second-round pick to get Tristan Jarry<\/a>, thinking that Jarry would help stabilize things between the pipes.\u00a0 Instead, Jarry was worse, much worse, which eventually pressed Ingram into the starting role.<\/p>\n