The Edmonton Oilers are a second-chance organization.

Time, and time, and time again, the Oilers have proven they’re willing to give players a shot at reviving their careers after dealing with off-ice actions. They did so with Craig MacTavish in the ’80s after he served a vehicular homicide sentence. Zack Kassian, Evander Kane, Corey Perry, Stan Bowman, and Mike Babcock have all gotten their chance in recent years.

In most of these cases, you could squint to look beyond their conduct and see where they could help the team out, and to each of MacTavish, Kassian, Kane, Perry, and Bowman’s credit, they’ve shown they can turn the page. Babcock is to be determined.

So when the Oilers signed Alex Formenton to a one-year contract Wednesday, the reaction was visceral, and rightly so. The 26-year-old was one of five former World Junior players charged with sexual assault related to the high-profile 2018 case, and along with Carter Hart, Michael McLeod, Cal Foote, and Dillon Dube, was acquitted at trial.

All five players were suspended by the NHL through Dec. 1, 2025, as well as by Hockey Canada to varying levels, with Formenton being reinstated by the organization in August, and the other four facing suspensions lasting until Nov. 10, 2026, for Foote, and the same date in 2030 for McLeod.

Hart has returned to the NHL, signing with the Vegas Golden Knights last season, backstopping them to the Stanley Cup final. McLeod has spent the last two years playing in the KHL, and will do so this year for Avangard Omsk again. Foote was set to join the SHL’s Färjestad BK this season, but backlash from “supporters, members, partners, leaders, employees, and others who care about Färjestad BK” led them to cancel the deal. Dube played a year in the KHL and spent last year with the St. Louis Blues’ AHL affiliate, where he’ll play this year, too.

Formenton getting another chance to continue his hockey-playing career is something he undoubtedly, like in the case of the other four, has a right to. The question is, why is it with the Edmonton Oilers, and why are they signing him immediately to the one-year deal they did?

It’s not the first time the Oilers have signed a player accused of sexual misconduct in a court of law. Jake Virtanen joined the Oilers in September 2022 on a professional tryout after being found not guilty of one count of sexual assault in B.C. earlier that year.

It was tough to see where Virtanen would help the Oilers at the time, and the same is true now with Formenton. For one, he hasn’t played an NHL game since April 2022, capping off his first full season in the league, where he scored 18 goals and 32 points in 79 games for the Ottawa Senators, who cut ties with him this summer.

Formenton has since spent three of the last four years playing in Switzerland for HC Ambrì-Piotta, having missed the entirety of the 2024-25 season. He has tallied 33 goals and 52 points in 88 overseas games over that stretch, and last season he had his best season, scoring 13 goals and 23 points in 42 games, finishing fifth on his team in scoring. His production had him ranked 82nd among Swiss League players last year.

Here’s a select list of players who scored more than he did, and their rank among scorers, courtesy of EliteProspects:

It would be one thing for Formenton to be overseas in Switzerland, putting up point-per-game numbers, but he’s put up a bit over half a point per game in his time. Using HockeyStat’s NHL equivalency model, which values one point in the Swiss League at 0.054 points in the NHL, Formenton’s 52 points in 88 games equate to 2.8 points in the NHL.

Formenton, of course, has already scored at a better rate in the NHL, scoring 23 goals and 39 points in 109 games, but it more so highlights how poor the competition is in Switzerland compared to what’s seen in the NHL. Even when Formenton was in North America, he contributed at the level of a high-end fourth-line player, according to HockeyViz, driving offence at a two per cent rate above league average and defence at a nine per cent rate below league average. He drove play on the power play at four per cent rate below league average, and penalty kill play at a league average rate.

For an Edmonton Oilers team that needs more offence — and better defending — from its bottom six, it’s hard to see where Formenton fits. He’s a big body, sure, standing six foot three, 195 pounds, but he didn’t use it much with just 101 hits that season.

The team worked hard to address its depth in the forward ranks this summer. Is Formenton really going to edge out any of the newcomers in Mathieu Joseph, Eduards Tralmaks, and Aku Raty, or any of the returning bottom-six pieces, like Trent Frederic, Colton Dach, or Max Jones? I have the hardest time thinking so.

None of this, of course, addresses the swift backlash from the fan base that the team surely won’t pay attention to. It’s one thing to bring Formenton in on a professional tryout, let him grind through camp, then sign a one-year contract, but to sign him outright like this is nonsensical.

Zach Laing is Daily Faceoff Edmonton’s managing editor and The Nation Network’s news director. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.