Tristan Jarry’s first game in an Edmonton Oilers jersey was a solid yet unspectacular. He made some great stops, perhaps none better than his breakaway save on Maple Leafs forward John Tavares, but a garbage-time goal by Toronto pushed his save percentage below .900 on the night.

Still, he gave the team a chance to win, and I think every Oilers fan would call it a positive night.

No one is judging this trade based on the results of one game, though. Stan Bowman’s decision to bring in Jarry, and pay a hefty price to do so, is one that will go down as a defining moment of the Connor McDavid era, no matter which way it ends up going.

The timing of the trade was peculiar, considering that Stuart Skinner had actually found his game over the last couple of weeks. The price the Oilers had to pay was puzzling to me as well, but what’s done is done and the next big question for the Bowman is: what’s next?

Throughout the early stages of this season, I have talked about how this could potentially be a year where the Oilers don’t quite go all-in.

Not that you ever punt on a season when you have the two best players in the world, but there were a handful of things working against them.

They are pressed right up against the salary cap, so any trade that they would want to make would have to be a dollar-in, dollar-out deal. With the new of no-trade and no-movement clauses the Oilers have, creating the necessary cap space to make a big splash was going to be very difficult.

Also, the league cracked down on the double-retention loophole that the Oilers have used in the past to acquire players. Another hurdle that needs to be cleared to make a deal.

They also don’t have their 2026 first-round pick, they traded it away in the Jake Walman deal last season and they moved on from one of their top prospects, Sam O’Reilly, in the Ike Howard trade this past summer. They aren’t exactly flush with quality trade assets.

So with limited assets, minimal cap space and being a team that had just gone on back-to-back long playoff runs… it just felt like maybe this should be a year where the Oilers make some smaller moves and just take a chance with the roster that they have.

They have cap space this summer and there could be some really quality players on the market, including some really good goalies.

I felt like there was a lot of logic in just letting the chips fall where they may this year and then getting hype aggressive in July when things open up a little bit.

Now that they’ve paid the price that they did for Jarry, my tune has changed.

This deal comes with upside, but it also comes with some massive risk.

If Jarry doesn’t pan out the way that they envision, they are stuck with him for two-more seasons and if things go south, those could be the final two seasons in an Oilers jersey for Connor McDavid.

The time is now for Bowman to get aggressive and I think he should fully overhaul his goaltending duo.

I understand that the team loves Calvin Pickard, but I would not want to risk having to turn to him in the playoffs again. Alex Lyon and Laurent Brossoit are two options that could very well be acquired in the near future and I think Bowman should be calling.

After that, they should be dangling their 2027 first-round pick in order to add another impact piece.

Right now it doesn’t feel like there is a glaring hole anywhere in the roster, so Bowman can take his time and wait until closer to the deadline, but I would love to see them go after a player like Alex Tuch and add another impact forward to this lineup.

The team needs to produce more offence when McDavid and Draisaitl are off the ice and acquiring a player like Tuch would help do exactly that. He could drive his own line or go right next to one of the Oilers’ two superstars and move some players down the lineup who could make a positive impact.

The move for Tristan Jarry was a big swing for GM Stan Bowman, but it can’t be his only one.

The Edmonton Oilers absolutely have to be all in this season.