Expansion Draft Preview: Edmonton Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers have a big off-season ahead of them.

The team suffered yet another disappointing loss in the first round of the playoffs, this time in the form of a sweep at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets.

Ken Holland has quite a bit of salary cap room to work with this off-season to make major changes to the team’s roster. He might also be able to use the Expansion Draft as a way to open up even more flexibility.

Eligible Forwards

@Connor McDavid, @Leon Draisaitl, @Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, @James Neal, @Zack Kassian, @Alex Chiasson, @Kyle Turris, @Josh Archibald, @Jujhar Khaira, @Jesse Puljujarvi, @Kailer Yamamoto, @Tyler Ennis, @Dominik Kahun, @Cooper Marody, @Tyler Benson, @Devin Shore

Eligible Defencemen

@Darnell Nurse, @Oscar Klefbom, @Adam Larsson, @Kris Russell, @Tyson Barrie, @Ethan Bear, @Dmitry Kulikov, @Caleb Jones, @William Lagesson, @Slater Koekkoek

Eligible Goaltenders

@Mikko Koskinen, @Mike Smith, @Alex Stalock, @Stuart Skinner

Exempt Players

Raphael Lavoie, Ryan McLeod, Dylan Holloway, Phillip Broberg, @Evan Bouchard, Dmitri Samorukov, Filip Berglund, Philip Kemp, Olivier Rodrigue, Ilya Konovalov

What should they do?

The Oilers only really have four forwards who jump out as no-brainers to protect from Seattle: McDavid, Draisaitl, Yamamoto, and Puljujarvi. With that in mind, it might make sense for the Oilers to go ahead with the eight-skater protection scheme in order to keep all of their quality defenders in-house.

Darnell Nurse and Ethan Bear are obvious names to protect. Oscar Klefbom is an interesting case because he’s coming off of shoulder surgery that kept him out for the entirety of the 2021 season. If the Oilers do the 7-3-1 scheme, they’ll have to choose between letting Seattle have their pick on Klefbom or a young defender like Caleb Jones.

Now, all of this could be moot if Holland makes a side deal with Seattle. He could entice the Kraken with a prospect or a draft pick to take on @James Neal or @Mikko Koskinen, which would free up even more salary cap room for the team to operate with this summer.

Both players are buyout candidates but the Oilers are already bogged down with dead money owed to Andrej Sekera and Milan Lucic, so giving Seattle a treat for taking a bad contract might be a worthwhile move.