Just 10 days ago, as part of our Daily Faceoff Roundtable, the panel members ruminated on which GMs were under the most pressure this offseason. I chose Ken Holland. The Oilers, I surmised, had so many question marks. Could they hold onto Evander Kane? Find a new No. 1 goaltender? Cross their fingers and hope for a Duncan Keith retirement and Mike Smith LTIR stash? Find a way to re-sign underrated blueliner Brett Kulak?

If you had told me then that the answer to all those questions would be “yes” within less than two weeks, I would’ve laughed. Hats off to Holland, who managed to lock up Kane, one of the sport’s top power forwards when emotionally committed, on a four-year contract at a reasonable AAV of $5.125 million. He produced as a true front-line scorer upon joining the Oilers last season, tallying 35 goals in 58 games between the regular season and playoffs, forging some real chemistry with Connor McDavid.

Holding on to him, not to mention Kulak, means the Oilers have strong odds of retaining the gains they made in 2021-22, when they upset the Calgary Flames in Round 2 of the playoffs and reached their first Western Conference Final since 2005-06. Securing a new No. 1 netminder in Jack Campbell makes things even more interesting. Campbell occasionally struggles with his confidence and has his detractors, but he was good more often than not as a Toronto Maple Leaf and there’s no shame in losing to Carey Price and Andrei Vasilevskiy in consecutive postseasons. At worst, Campbell should be able to stop pucks as well as a 40-year-old Smith did this past season. The Oilers are positioned as arguably the top contender to win the Pacific Division next season given the massive pendulum swing of Gaudreau leaving the Calgary Flames.