When March 21st comes around each year, people start looking towards a new season filled with sun and warmth instead of snow and cold. Focus starts to take shape at the end of school and summer holidays. In the world of hockey, it means some of those things, but it also is the start of other seasons.

Playoffs across amateur and professional leagues. Signing season for unrestricted free agents also begins for junior players, collegiate players and unsigned professionals. It’s also the beginning of the process of evaluating the year past for an NHL team’s prospects. This is no different for the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers prospect pool got smaller at the trade deadline with Max Wanner, Shane Lachance and Carl Berglund being sent to other teams. The question for the Oilers and for this report is whether the pool got better, and, if so, where and by how much. These are the critical questions for Oiler management as they assess not only the upcoming NHL draft, but signing season for unrestricted free agents. So let’s see what the Oilers prospect pool has done recently and what it might mean down the road.

There is not an Oiler prospect who generates more 5v5 points off his own efforts than William Nicholl. Nicholl combines a very quick skating style with dogged determination and an offensive confidence to often take over shifts creating chances for him and his teammates. His latest highlight might be his best. I showed this clip last evening on X. Just have a watch at the whole clip and watch Nicholl’s skating, hockey sense and confidence with the puck.

Think that’s a fluke, well here are a couple of more for your viewing pleasure.

Without a doubt, William Nicholl developed more than any other Oiler prospect relative to his draft position this year. He ended the regular season going 21-36-57 in 66 games. The average of .86 points per game demolished his prior best of .31 points per game in his draft year. Even more impressive was the fact that 52 of his 57 points came at even strength for the London Knights. When Nicholl sees more specialty team play next season, his overall totals will rise. That said, it is an incredibly impressive feat to score this much at even strength at 18 years old. That’s right, Nicholl does not turn 19 until the end of May. Nicholl’s role in the London Knight playoff push will be fascinating to watch.

The Oilers surprise first round draft pick in the 2024 NHL draft finished his season in a slightly bitter sweet way. Do not get me wrong, his season was a great success. O’Reilly averaged 1.15 points per game after going .82 points per game in his draft year. He ended the year with 71 points in 62 games and managed to average three shots per game, which was an increase of half a shot per game over the prior year. In the month of March, O’Reilly played eight games and registered 15 points. The slightly bitter sweet part was O’Reilly missed time in March after a hard collision into the boards. This interrupted a really great run by O’Reilly.

In terms of development, O’Reilly really excelled on the power play which was a slightly surprising development given the talent on this London team. He ended the year with 19 points on the power play which was fourth on the team. His puck skills were underrated in his draft year, but he really showed them off as the season progressed. This led to his success on the powerplay.

O’Reilly also really started to find his confidence as the season wound down. Earlier in the season, he could get lost a bit in games often taking a supporting role. However, as the season went on, he started to exert himself in games more and even began to develop a hard physical presence in games.

O’Reilly will play a critical role for the London Knights in the playoffs. He will be on the first powerplay, the first penalty kill and he will be counted on in all high leverage situations in games. This will be an important part of O’Reilly’s season and one to watch closely.

I have liked most of Savoie’s first professional season. Indeed, it was so good that he was recalled to join the Oilers and registered a great assist in his first game setting up Leon Draisaitl. When Savoie was returned to the AHL, he went through a bit of a swoon. His effort was still high end and his plays with the puck were strong.

However, he has only registered six points in the nine games in his return. The challenging part is how to evaluate these nine games. The Bakersfield Condors are a very limited offensive team. I still am uncertain that Savoie’s quick play can be accurately measured on an AHL of this offensive quality. Nevertheless, he should have done more with his opportunities. He can do it for certain.

Savoie enters the last three games of the season tied for fifth in rookie scoring in the AHL with 43 points in 54 games. These games are important to him, but also to the team which is fighting for the last playoff spot. It would be encouraging to see Savoie take an assertive step forward in these games and use his dynamic skill to help his team to the playoffs.

Philp is the most puzzling prospect for the Oilers. His play this season has really been inconsistent at a time when he should be seasoned enough to maintain a steady state of play. In addition, he is not going to improve his points per game scoring over his last season in Bakersfield. He’s basically on track for .5 points per game average which is the same as his 22/23 season. On the other side, he averaged almost a full shot per game over his last professional season at almost 2.5 shots per game. This is a solid improvement.

In addition, and most puzzling, Philp gets very little love from the coaching staff in terms of his linemates. Without a doubt, Philp is one of the two best centres on the team. Yet, on many nights he was the third centre playing with borderline AHL/ECHL players. Only recently with Derek Ryan’s recall, Philp started to see better quality linemates like Seth Griffith. So it is really hard to assess Philp. When you see clips like this, you wonder why he doesn’t stay with more elite offensive players on the team.

Now to be fair, some of this is on Philp. This is a good skating 6’3″ 215 pound player and he should make it really hard on the opposition constantly like he does here.

However, these clips do not happen enough even though they could. I really don’t know what the future is for Philp. He has not helped his cause to some degree although his defensive game remains elite. That said, the coaching staff hasn’t really shown much confidence in him as a difference maker offensively. These last three games will be very interesting to watch for Philp. As a RFA, there will be some tough decisions coming shortly for the team and Philp.

This was a really surprising pick by the Oilers given that Clattenburg had been passed over in two prior drafts. However, Clattenburg proved the Oilers faith in him. While he only played 46 games this season, he totaled 35 points in those games for a .75 points per game average. This exceeded his prior year of just under .5 points per game. He also improved his shots per game to 2.5 which was a .75 shots per game higher than the prior season.

The only issue for Clattenburg is injuries. Clattenburg is a big body at 6’2″ and 205 pounds. However, he plays the game at a high tempo that is very physical. From time to time, he has needed time off to heal. Currently, Clattenburg has not played since March 8th. His team will have a very difficult first round match-up with the Kitchener Rangers. Whether Clattenburg can play will make a difference to his and his team’s fortunes.

Wakely was a sixth round pick in the 2024 NHL draft and was another overager who was coming off a huge 105 point season in North Bay. The question was whether Wakely was zoomed in as part of a very strong force in North Bay or he had legitimately broken out. Well, Wakely’s totals did decline. He ended up with 58 points in 55 games for 1.05 points per game after scoring at a 1.5 point per game clip the prior year. Now the Barrie Colts are a much stronger team and Wakely didn’t get as many cherry minutes as in North Bay. However, there can be no question his regular season would be seen as a sideways step in his development. His playoff run will be keenly important as he borders on a professional career coming next.

I really want to love Akey. He’s such a smooth skating defender with a great pass and a unique ability to get shots through to the net. However, he just seems to leave some of his game in the dressing room each night. No doubt coming off difficult shoulder surgery has been a challenge, but that is almost 15 months ago now. His point totals of 32 in 52 games is less than the 47 points he had in 67 games in his draft year on a points per game average.

Even more concerning is his shot total average is flat from his draft year. Even if his point totals were down, you can sometimes see development through progress on shot totals. None here with Akey. Now, the encouraging part is he showed well in limited minutes at the World Juniors. He also very likely has a long playoff run given the strength of the Barrie team. This will be important as Akey will be a professional player next year and the game will get faster and more physical.

Luca Munzenberger and Joel Maatta finished their seasons with Vermont some time ago. No update on signing with the Oilers at the time of this post. Their rights are held until August 15, 2025.

Matt Capponi is in the Frozen Four with his Boston University teammates. Copponi is a senior and will also be looking for a professional contract next season. His 20 points in 36 games was underwhelming given his prior seasons, but he does have some offensive skill to his game.

That’s all for this Oilers Prospect Report. We will start to dig into the playoffs for all the Oiler prospects starting this coming weekend. See you around the rink.