As the Edmonton Oilers’ training camp kicks off for the 2025-26 season, five of their six defenceman slots are firmly secured, with Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Jake Walman, Darnell Nurse, and Brett Kulak all clearly established as staples on the team’s blueline. The sixth and final spot remains undecided, and it is expected to go to one of Ty Emberson or Troy Stecher.

Troy Stecher was dealt to the Edmonton Oilers from the Arizona Coyotes at the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, while Ty Emberson was acquired by the Oilers from the San Jose Sharks in a deal that sent Cody Ceci the other way. In 2024-25, both defencemen were generally in Edmonton’s lineup for most of the regular-season, with Emberson suiting up for 76 regular-season games and Stecher for 66. However, the mid-season signing of John Klingberg and the trade deadline acquisition of Jake Walman significantly altered the structure of Edmonton’s defensive core, consequently affecting both Emberson and Stecher’s roles on the roster. This was particularly evident in the postseason.

During the 2025 playoffs, Emberson initially appeared in all six games of the first round against the LA Kings and the early part of the second round against the Vegas Golden Knights. But following Game 3 of Round 2, he was sidelined as a healthy scratch for the remainder of the postseason, sitting out the entirety of the Western Conference and Stanley Cup Finals. As for Stecher, he was persistently in and out of the lineup throughout the postseason, playing two games in the second round, four games in the third round, and two games in the cup finals.

With John Klingberg signing with the San Jose Sharks this past summer, there will be more opportunity for Emberson and Stecher to play regular minutes. Yes, Alec Regula (defenceman claimed by the Oilers on waivers last year) may also potentially compete for a spot, but considering the fact that he is an unproven player who has not played a single NHL game in the past two seasons and has struggled with significant injuries, I believe it is highly unlikely that he will start the season in the NHL. However, with five defencemen locked into the lineup as mentioned above, alongside the fact that Kris Knoblauch has seldom deployed the 11 forward / 7 defencemen set-up, it is expected that there will only be one remaining spot up for grabs on a healthy roster between Stecher and Emberson.

So, who will be the sixth defenceman for the Oilers in 2025-26? Let’s take a closer look into Emberson and Stecher’s results, utilizing them to project what this roster battle could look like in training camp and throughout the upcoming season.

Firstly, here is a head-to-head comparison of Stecher and Emberson’s underlying numbers at even-strength:

In terms of on-ice impact, Emberson has the clear advantage here. Both his offensive and defensive impact on even-strength scoring chances are considerably superior to Stecher. In particular, his even-strength defensive impact is quite strong, ranking in the 78th percentile among all defenders. Note that Emberson and Stecher’s quality of competition rate is essentially identical, so there is no unfair comparison being made here.

However, the microstats in this case are quite interesting. On the one hand, Emberson’s microstats across the board here – from zone exits to entry defence to retrievals – range from below-average to quite poor. Meanwhile, Stecher is about the league average in controlled exit rate and defensive zone retrieval success rate, while his zone exit success rate is well above the average. Though Stecher’s underlying offensive impact is quite subpar, his zone exit results suggest that, in the right role, there may be more potential here. From my eye, his first pass is clearly quite good.

Still, there are two noteworthy caveats here. Firstly, though Emberson is not a strong entry defender, he does not rank as poorly as Stecher does at preventing controlled entries and rush chances against. Secondly, it is worth mentioning that certain types of defensive microstats are not tracked by AllThreeZones (the source of this microstat data), such as cycle break-ups and blocked passes, to name a few, and these are areas in which I would say Emberson performs quite well. His rush defending may be mediocre, but he remains strong defensively overall due to his excellent in-zone defending.

To add on to the second part, there is another key advantage that Emberson possesses over Stecher, and that is penalty-killing ability.

In the 2024-25 regular-season, Emberson led Edmonton’s entire defensive core in TOI on the penalty-kill (147:54), and the results were quite good. With Emberson on-ice on the PK, the Oilers allowed just 6.6 goals against per hour, compared to a rate of 9.5 without him. Considering that Emberson was regularly matched up against opposition top units, this is impressive. In the prior season with San Jose, Emberson was on-ice for about 6.2 GA/60, so these results do not seem to be a fluke.

However, Stecher too possesses a unique advantage, and that is chemistry and experience with Darnell Nurse. In a combined 559 minutes in the 2024-25 regular-season and playoffs combined, Nurse and Stecher produced a solid 55 percent goal differential, out-scoring opponents 21 to 17 at 5-on-5. A key reason for this is likely Stecher’s above-average exit passing, as mentioned earlier. On the other hand, Emberson’s results with Nurse in limited minutes were quite subpar, and he has minimal NHL top-four experience in general.

With everything in mind, the roster battle between Emberson and Stecher will be dependent on the defensive pairings and what areas the coaching staff would like to prioritize. Currently, Jake Walman is projected to start the season next to Darnell Nurse, taking away what is arguably Stecher’s most appealing advantage. This, combined with Emberson’s PK ability, makes it quite likely that Emberson will begin the season in the sixth defenceman spot next to Brett Kulak on the third-pair.

However, the Oilers’ pairings are obviously not set in stone for the entire season. I expect the coaching staff to experiment with different pairs throughout the season. For instance, I would personally be interested to see how potential pairs of Kulak – Bouchard / Ekholm – Walman would perform, and this would certainly open up opportunity for Stecher to play in the lineup next to Nurse.

All in all, this will be an interesting storyline to keep an eye on.

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