The Edmonton Oilers have hit a major organizational fork in the road after being bounced from the playoffs in the first round last year.

Connor McDavid’s sweetheart two-year extension kicks in this season, and by the time next summer rolls around when he’s eligible to extend, there will be plenty of noise about what his future looks like. As much as it’s hard to picture him playing elsewhere, the same was once said about Wayne Gretzky, and look at what happened there.

It’s going to be crucial for the whole team to have a good season, and there are three breakout candidates primed to help push the team forward.

Simply put, it could be a meteoric rise for Savoie this season. After starting last season toiling away in the Oilers’ bottom six, he was moved to the top line after the Olympic break, scoring nine goals and 19 points in 24 games, nearly the same number he put up in the first 58 games of the season.

It will be up to Savoie to seize the opportunity in front of him and stick on the Oilers’ top line alongside McDavid — and even if he ends up alongside Leon Draisaitl on the second line — he’ll be in for a big season. The Dynamic Duo tends to get the most out of their linemates in terms of production, and Savoie’s style of play accents both very well as a hard-checking forward that can win puck battles, get to the dirty area, and most importantly, get the puck to the superstars.

Savoie is also a candidate to replace Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on the top power play unit, which could only add as further insulation for an offensive breakout. I’m buying all the Savoie stock I can.

Podkolzin has transformed himself as an NHLer since joining the Oilers, going from an AHL-to-NHL tweener to a legitimate piece of Edmonton’s top-six. He’s found a home alongside Draisaitl on the second line, which is where he should spend his time moving forward.

While he put up an okay eight goals and 24 points in 82 games in 2024-25, his first season with the Oilers, he doubled his goal total last season, racking up 19 goals and 37 points in 82 games. That came after a long summer of hard work, where he focused on developing skills to complement Draisaitl’s style of play. It clearly paid off, and he looked much more confident with the puck on his stick.

I’m not going to say that he will double his goal total in his third year in Edmonton, but who’s to say he can’t score 25 goals and 50 points?

There are few players who are going to be more crucial to the 2026-27 season than Walman, and while it’s rare for a 30-year-old player to have a breakout season, just look at what Darren Raddysh did last year for the Tampa Bay Lightning. He more than tripled his previous high in goals, and nearly doubled his career high in points.

Granted, much of that production came on the power play, and while Walman won’t see many minutes on the top unit, there’s a good chance Edmonton’s second unit starts to get more work, and that could open up a pathway for more production.

Moreso than the point totals, the Oilers are going to need consistency from Walman, which is something they couldn’t get last year. He missed 32 games due to injury over the course of the year, and even when he was healthy, he didn’t quite look like himself at times.

With Darnell Nurse out of the mix, the team is going to be relying on Walman to step up in his wake, and if he can’t, there will be some awkward conversations around the defenceman that is entering the first year of a seven-year contract paying him $7-million per year.

Levi will need an opportunity to become a breakout candidate, and given the injury history Tristan Jarry and Freddie Andersen have, it’s not unreasonable to think he’ll get the opportunity.

Not long after being considered one of the best goaltending prospects in the world, Levi fell out of favour in Buffalo due to a goaltending logjam. Now, he’ll encounter something similar in Edmonton, but there is a much clearer path forward. For as much as the Oilers hope Jarry can rebound, there’s no guarantee there, and Andersen has only played 73 games in the last three regular seasons.

At 24-years-old, Levi is ready to make that jump, and is someone who was highly coveted by the organization.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s managing editor and The Nation Network’s news director. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.

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