On Tuesday the Edmonton Oilers announced that they had signed University of Denver defenceman Joey LaLeggia to an entry-level deal. LaLeggia, originally a fifth-round pick of the Oilers in the 2012 Draft, had just finished his fourth season in college hockey.

#Oilers sign NCHC Player of the Year and @HobeyBakerAward finalist @JLaLeggia21 to a two-year entry-level contract. pic.twitter.com/TFgnmeTHkR

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 31, 2015

2012 Draft

LaLeggia is the fourth member of the Oilers’ seven-player 2012 Draft class to sign with the team. The group included the following picks:

• No. 1 Nail Yakupov. After some tough years, the dynamic winger is playing the best hockey of his career.
• No. 32 Mitch Moroz. A big, physical winger, Moroz has struggled badly in Oklahoma City this season (seven points, minus 12 in 58 games) and will have exceeded reasonable expectations if he develops into a third-line player.
• No. 63 Jujhar Khaira. A big, physical centre, Khaira hasn’t scored in the minors but has had more of a role with the team. At this point, it seems unlikely that he will be more than a bottom-six forward.
• No. 91 Daniil Zharkov. Big winger has not scored as hoped and isn’t even a KHL regular at this point.
• No. 93 Erik Gustafsson. Gustafsson has done some good work as a two-way defender in Sweden the last couple of seasons but if I’m reading the CBA correctly the Oilers no longer own his rights.
• No. 123 Joey LaLeggia.
• No. 153 John McCarron. McCarron is another big winger, but his scoring has plummeted this season; he’s actually scoring less for Cornell now than he did in 2011-12 when Edmonton drafted him.

LaLeggia

LaLeggia, a d-man drafted 123rd overall by the #Oilers in 2012, scored 40 pts and was +14 in 37 games with @DU_Hockey this season.

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 31, 2015

LaLeggia is a fascinating player, from the Marc-Andre Bergeron/Torey Krug/Brad Hunt class of defenceman: Small and offence-minded. Bruce McCurdy recently put together a scouting report on the player for the Edmonton Journal’s Cult of Hockey website. I recommend reading the whole post, but I’ll excerpt some of it as a thumbnail sketch:

Laleggia, who played both the right and left sides at times, was adept at either rushing or passing the puck out of his own end, starting numerous breakouts over the course of the 60 minutes. He was calm with the puck on his blade, coping well with pressure and moving the disc when the lane opened up, often by hightailing it out of the zone himself… Defensively his best weapons were also his footspeed, his positioning, and a good stick. He cut out passing lanes, boxed out players effectively, and showed excellent read-and-react skills. Along the walls I would call his approach “hard on the puck” as opposed to “hard on the man” but he didn’t strike me as playing a soft game. On one or two occasions he struggled to cope with bigger forwards driving to the net, an issue that is always going be a concern with smaller men on the back end.

It’s a boom-or-bust player-type; someone like Krug can be invaluable in the right situation while someone like Hunt might end up settling in as a high-level AHL player. Either way, the big question is what happens when he makes the jump to the professional ranks.

It’s a question that Oilers fans won’t need to wait on long for an answer.

LaLeggia tells @Bob_Stauffer on @OilersNow he expects to be joining the @OKCBarons later this week on an ATO agreement.

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 31, 2015

He’s going to be a fun player to watch down the stretch in Oklahoma City, and also in training camp next year. Despite being a rookie pro, LaLeggia will be 23 years of age next fall, making him a contemporary of Martin Marincin. Time in Bakersfield next season is highly probable, but if he manages the transition to professional hockey smoothly he could be an NHL option as early as midway through 2015-16.

RECENTLY BY JONATHAN WILLIS

• There’s no upside to dumping Teddy Purcell
• Derek Roy’s next contract
• Brandon Davidson returns
• Handling Todd Nelson
• Edmonton Oilers: Prelude to 2015-16
• Matt O’Connor could be playing NHL hockey in Edmonton before the year is out
• Derek Roy, Anton Lander and Leon Draisaitl isn’t enough
• Follow Jonathan Willis on Twitter