Much has been made about Isaac Howard in the early stages of this season, and it’s easy to see why.

At 21 years old, he’s the youngest player on the team, and the youngest lineup regular since Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg in 2022-23, when they were the same age.

The expectations for Howard in his first season aren’t massive or insurmountable, but the goal has been, and will continue to be, for him to be someone who can help provide some depth scoring for the Oilers as they move to a younger team. Now six games into his rookie season — with limited ice-time and a healthy scratch mixed in — he finally got on the board, letting go a quick shot from the slot that helped the Oilers en route to Tuesday’s win over the Ottawa Senators.

There have been calls for him to be sent down to the American Hockey League to play for the Oilers’ AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, and it’s easy to see why. The NHL isn’t a development league, and for a player like Howard who is making the jump from college hockey to the best league in the world, that can be a steep hill to climb. Time in the AHL, after all, would allow for him to soak up more ice-time and get more opportunities to develop as a prospect.

But maybe playing on the big club is the right spot for him to be.

Part of the argument is that he hasn’t exactly looked out of place. While he’s played 59 minutes, his individual per hour rates — which allow us to look at how he compares to players who’ve played more than him — are strong.

His 7.07 shots per hour are third on the team, his 14.11 shot attempts per hour lead all Oilers, while his 8.06 scoring chances per hour rank fourth. His willingness to get his shot off is a good sign of what can come, even if his high-danger scoring chance and individual expected goal rates aren’t the strongest. The more he plays, the more he’ll learn how to navigate on the ice and get to those dangerous areas.

He’s broken even in goal share so far this season, sitting at or just below the 50 percent mark in terms of shot attempt share, shot share and scoring chance share, despite expected goal share and high-danger scoring chance share numbers sitting in the mid-30s. One thing plummeting those metrics is the fact he’s spent nearly 40 percent of his ice-time with Darnell Nurse, who has been an analytic black hole to start the season.

He has an knack for the offensive zone, which is what the Oilers are wanting from him, and with an injury to Kasperi Kapanen that is expected to keep him out for up to six weeks, the opportunities for him could grow.

To top it off, he a coach who believes in him as a player.

“He’ll have plenty of leeway, especially with the injuries we have right now,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said Tuesday. “(Mattias) Janmark not coming back anytime soon, Kapanen, losing him for several weeks. So we wanted to see how he plays and see if he can progress and look like an NHL player, and he’s looking like that.

“He’s starting to get more involved, moving his feet a little bit better. It’s not that he’s ‘deer in the headlights’ kind of thing where you’re playing in the NHL. First couple games, it can be a little difficult. He’s been contributing, he’s making some plays. Yeah, there’s going to be down games, but overall I like where he’s going right from first day of camp, he’s making progress and we’re going to keep pushing them to continue doing that because we have a lot of invested in them and we want him to be a good player for us in the long run.”

There’s going to be good games, there’s going to be bad games, but if Knoblauch means what he says, then one has to wonder if we start to see Howard’s ice-time increase.

And at the end of the day, it’s not like the Oilers have any other players who could provide much more than Howard can to this team as it stands.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.