The Edmonton Oilers had a busy summer, moving up in the draft, picking up pieces in free agency, and in August, dealing with offer sheets for Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg.
While they would decline to match either, allowing them to join the St. Louis Blues, the Oilers looked to replace them with other players, acquiring Vasily Podkolzin and Ty Emberson in separate trades. Podkolzin has fit in well alongside Leon Draisaitl on the Oilers’ second line, and after a slow start to the season, Emberson has begun to hit his stride on the blue line.
And while Podkolzin has a year left on his contract, Emberson doesn’t, with him potentially becoming a Group 6 unrestricted free agent this summer. Emberson, however, requires just 16 more games played this season to remain a restricted free agent, and barring anything unforeseen, will hit that requirement in short order.
Given what happened last summer with their restricted free agents, the Oilers are hoping to avoid any sort of a repeat. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said Monday on the 32 Thoughts Podcast that the team is looking to sit down with Emberson, 24, early in the new year.
So on January 1st, players who have been signed to one year contracts are eligible to sign extensions. There’s a few of them, obviously, and one of the ones I’m gonna be looking at is Ty Emberson of Edmonton.
A bit of a slow start. I remember Kyle Burrows when we were in LA telling us that the only thing he was worried about for Emberson is he’s a quiet guy who’d never played in a quote-unquote noisy market before. And he said that once he adjusted to that, he would be fine. Kyle Burrows should be either hosting a podcast or doing TV somewhere, because he was totally right about that.
Emberson has cooled down. He is playing very well. And you know, the other thing too is like, after what happened last summer to the Oilers, they’re not gonna be taking any chances. So I would not be surprised to see the Oilers and Emberson engage and work on trying to get something done not long after the 1st. We’ll see if it happens. But that’s one I’m gonna be looking for.
Emberson has drawn in for 34 games this year, scoring four assists and averaging 14:57 of ice time per game. His underlying numbers haven’t been great at five-on-five, with the Oilers losing shot attempt, scoring chance and expected goal battles, while also getting outscored 15-22. However, he was outscored 13-6 in his first 16 games of the season, but has broke even 9-9 in the team’s most recent 18 games.
Much of Emberson’s success has come in his 305 five-on-five minutes with Brett Kulak this season, as when he’s with the Stony Plain product, they’ve controlled 46.4 percent of the goal share, getting outscored 15-13. But in Emberson’s 135 minutes away from Kulak, he’s been outscored 7-2, though in the 153 minutes they’ve played together in the Oilers last 18 games, they’ve outscored the opposition 8-5.
Emberson’s on-ice contributions have been solid for what he’s asked to do, driving defence at a five percent rate above league average and play on the penalty kill at a four percent rate above league average, according to Hockey Viz.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.

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