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Should the Oilers dip their toes into the PTO market?
Photo credit: IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Aug 19, 2026, 09:00 EDTUpdated: Aug 18, 2026, 23:05 EDT
There was a time, back when I was producing The Lowdown with Lowetide on TSN 1260, when I would shout “PTO everybody!”
My thinking at the time was that the Edmonton Oilers depth was almost always abysmal, and if there was a somewhat decent NHLer out there, why wouldn’t you bring them into camp for free? Why not see if they’re better than whatever European free agents or AHL tweeners you are currently employing?
They were a no-lose proposition…except in the case of Jake Virtanen. That PTO definitely had some downside to it.
But for the most part, signing a player to a professional tryout was always seen as a risk-free way to add some competition to training camp with the possible upside of finding the odd diamond in the rough who turns into a valuable player for you.
That might not be the case anymore for this Oilers team. Let me explain:
A shorter pre-season could change the Oilers’ PTO strategy
First off, the NHL’s pre-season is shorter than ever now. Last season, the Oilers played in eight pre-season contests.
This year? That number has been cut in half.
Like pretty much every hockey fan, I am thrilled that the pre-season is much shorter and we will get to real, meaningful hockey faster. For these teams, though, this does mean less time to evaluate players, and if you’re a team like the Oilers, who already have a lot of players vying for not that many spots, then bringing in even more players to compete might just muddy the waters more than increase the competition level.
Let’s look at the forwards on the roster.
There are 10 players who I would consider locks to be on the roster come opening night: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Matt Savoie, Vasiliy Podkolzin, Jason Dickinson, Kasperi Kapanen, Colton Dach and Trent Frederic.
That means there are only three or four forward spots up for grabs, depending on how many players the Oilers want to carry and how much cap space they want to keep open.
Mathieu Joseph, Mattias Janmark, Josh Samanski, Ike Howard, and Max Jones are the players who I think have the inside track to landing a job coming out of camp, but even one or two of those guys won’t be able to make the team.
For what it’s worth, Samanski and Howard are probably pretty close to locks right now, considering the Oilers have a hole in the top-six and a hole in the fourth-line centre spot, but I’ll touch more on this later. Joseph seems like a good bet to make the team too, but you just never know.
On top of those names, Quinn Hutson, Eduards Tralmaks, Owen Michaels and Connor Clattenburg are all going to come into camp and try to win a spot on the NHL roster. Their odds might not be great, but they’ll be in the mix.
The point I’m making is that you could make the case that there are as many as nine forwards fighting for essentially three or four jobs. That’s already a lot of competition.
Oilers must consider filling needs
For the Oilers to want to add another name into that mix, they need to have the ability to fill one of the spots that I think are true weaknesses for the team right now.
One of them is top-six scoring help, and I don’t think players like Vladimir Tarasenko or Eeli Tolvanen are coming in on PTO’s, so you can scratch those names from the conversation.
The other is the fourth-line centre spot.
I am a big fan of Josh Samanski. I thought he showed some really nice flashes last season and if he’s had a good summer, then I have absolutely no problem with him being an everyday player right from the jump next year.
But I don’t think he did enough to be gifted the spot and while the Oilers have lots of depth on the wings, they don’t have a lot of depth down the middle. That’s really the only area I’d be looking at when it comes to PTOs: penalty-killing fourth-line centres (and preferably ones who shoot right).
If we focus on just the right-shot centres, then there are four options: Curtis Lazar, Calle Jarnkrok, Luke Glendening, and Luke Kunin.
None of these players scored more than six goals last season, but if you’re bringing in one of these players, you’re not bringing them in to score you goals. They all spent a decent amount of time on the penalty kill last season, which is something that the Oilers should be looking for.
Glendening is interesting because he has a history with Mike Babcock, having played for him during the first two seasons of his career in Detroit.
Scoring has never really been a strength, but he can still skate really well, despite being 37-years-old. He still ranked in the 92nd percentile in max skating speed last season according to NHL Edge.
He is also a career 55 per cent faceoff guy.
He would check a lot of boxes for the Oilers and out of the options available, he would probably be my pick as a player who could be a nice insurance policy for Josh Samanski and could be a solid 14th forward who gives them some depth down the middle of the ice.
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