After consecutive Stanley Cup Final losses, the Oilers’ hunger to hoist the Cup has only intensified. In the past three weeks, GM Stan Bowman has signed Connor McDavid, Jake Walman, Mattias Ekholm, Vasily Podkolzin and head coach Kris Knoblauch to new contracts. The Oilers’ core is signed for the next three seasons, and they expect to compete for the Cup each year.

My list of Cup contenders this season isn’t very long. It includes Florida, Edmonton, Vegas, Dallas, Colorado, Tampa Bay and Toronto. Carolina is the same team they’ve always been: a great regular-season team that plays fast and consistently, but lacks a superstar and gets pushed around later in the playoffs. Winnipeg has lots of good pieces, but their playoff struggles have them just outside my true contender list.

Make no mistake, Edmonton is one of the best teams in the NHL. They have two superstars. They have one of the best defence groups in the NHL. Their head coach has instilled a solid defensive structure, and they have a good mix of size and speed down the lineup. However, their roster isn’t complete. I expect Bowman to add a scoring winger before the trade deadline. He could add a goalie, depending how the season goes, but if Stuart Skinner returns to how he played in 2024 under Knoblauch, which is very possible, the need to add a goalie diminishes.

This was one of the quietest off-seasons in recent memory, in terms of significant player movement. Outside of Mitch Marner joining Vegas, and the Golden Knights losing Alex Pietrangelo for the entire season, including playoffs, we didn’t see many significant roster moves. The salary cap increased by $7.5m, leading most teams to retain their free agents. The biggest trade of the summer was Carolina acquiring K’Andre Miller from the Rangers — a good deal for the Hurricanes, who moved on from Brent Burns and Dmitry Orlov. Most of the roster changes for the top teams were depth players, excluding Vegas, which leads me to believe we will see some bigger moves closer to the trade deadline when GMs see their areas of need.

The Oilers main changes came up front. Corey Perry, Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner, Connor Brown, Evander Kane (didn’t play in the regular season) and Derek Ryan have been replaced by Andrew Mangiapane, David Tomášek, Matt Savoie, Ike Howard, Curtis Lazar, Noah Philp and Trent Frederic (played seven minutes in the regular season last year for Edmonton). Howard and Tomášek will make their NHL debuts tonight, while Savoie will skate in his sixth NHL game and Philp will play his 16th. No doubt Edmonton has less experience up front, but they are younger and quicker. The NHL will be a big adjustment for those latter four, and overall the new forwards will need to contribute, but they don’t have to be great to replace the contributions of their six predecessors.

In the first 40 games last season, Perry, Arvidsson, Skinner, Brown, Kane and Ryan combined for 25 goals and 64 points. Kane didn’t play. Brown had the most points (6-13-19) while Skinner had the most goals (7). Perry heated up in the final quarter of the season and finished with 19-11-30 while Brown had 13-17-30, Skinner scored 16-13-19, Arvidsson tallied 15-12-27 and Ryan potted 1-5-6, but wasn’t on the roster for half the season.

Mangiapane and Frederic need to score 15-20 goals each. They have the most experience and both have multiple seasons with 17+goals. Tomášek has 10 seasons of pro experience in Europe, but he’s a first-year NHL player (NHL doesn’t classify him as a rookie), and he’s very skilled so he will start the season on the first-unit power play. He’s in a fabulous spot to gain some confidence. Savoie will start on the second line, as well as playing on the second-unit PP and he’ll be one of the main four penalty killers. He should be able to score 11-15 goals. Howard will play on the second-unit PP and start on a line with Adam Henrique and Tomášek. I won’t be surprised to see him get some seasoning in the AHL at some point this season. He’s a shooter, but his spot on the roster will depend on how he plays defensively. Knoblauch needs to trust players defensively to play them.

Philp starts the season as the third line centre. Once Hyman returns and Draisaitl moves to the second line centre, Philp is likely the fourth line centre behind Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. But Philp starts on a big, fast line with Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen. This line has the potential to be a very good forechecking line that is responsible defensively. Ideally, they become a momentum-building line that can chip in as Kapanen has high-level skill. Kapanen was quite good in the playoffs last year, and his pre-season play suggests he’s figured out the need for more consistency in his game. I’d argue he is the third-most naturally skilled forward on the team after McDavid and Draisaitl. But consistency, or a lack thereof, is why he’s bounced around the league. If he finds that, I have no doubt he can score 20 goals again for the first time since 2019.

I’m perplexed why so many pundits feel the Oilers aren’t as good as previous years. Their top superstars are in their primes. Evan Bouchard has emerged as a true #1 D-man, and their top five defencemen are among the best in the NHL. Toss in Alec Regula, who has looked very good despite not playing hockey in 18 months, and Ty Emberson and Troy Stecher, and Edmonton has more than enough skill and depth to compete. Edmonton is different, but the core of their team is still intact, and it is very good.

The main question is: Can they start better than they have the previous two seasons? One could argue the slow start didn’t hurt them as they played in the Final both seasons, but they’d prefer not to have to be in chase mode from November to the end of the season. A good start will help, and it begins tonight against their provincial rival.

SNAPSHOTS…

— The Edmonton Oilers begin their 46th season (47th year) in the NHL tonight and it will be the 35th time they’ve started on home ice. No NHL franchise has opened up on home ice more often than the Oilers. Edmonton is 21-10-3 in home-ice season openers and they will be looking for better start tonight than the 6-0 spanking they took last season at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets.

— Edmonton has a record of 117-122-18-9 against Calgary in the regular season. They are 27-18-1 in the Connor McDavid era including going 2-0 in season openers.

— Tonight is the 10th time the Oilers and Flames will meet in a season opener. Edmonton won five of the first nine with a record of 5-2 at home and 0-2 on the road.

— This is the third time they’ve met in the McDavid/Draisaitl era.

In October, 2016, Edmonton won 7-4 at home and McDavid scored 2-1-3.

In October, 2017, the Oilers won 3-0 at home and McDavid scored a hat trick.

— The Flames have won their previous three season openers, and they’ve scored five goals in each game. They will try to become only the second team in 35 years to win four-consecutive season openers when scoring 5+ goals.

— Leon Draisaitl is one goal shy of 400. He’ll become the fourth Oilers to score 400 goals in the blue and orange joining Glenn Anderson (417), Jari Kurri (474) and Wayne Gretzky (583). Draisaitl needs 185 goals in eight seasons to break Gretzky’s record. Seems inevitable.

— Darnell Nurse’s next goal will be his 82nd and it will break a tie with Charlie Huddy for second-most goals by an Oilers defenceman.

— Stuart Skinner is two wins shy of being the sixth goalie with 100 regular season victories. He needs seven to pass Cam Talbot (104) for fifth on the Oilers.

LINEUPS…

Oilers…

Draisaitl-McDavid-Frederic
Mangiapane-RNH-Savoie
Podkolzin-Philp-Kapanen
Howard-Henrique-Tomášek

Ekholm-Bouchard
Nurse-Regula
Kulak-Emberson

Skinner

Adam Henrique will play his 994th game tonight, while his linemates each play their first NHL games. “That is amazing,” said Henrique. “David is playing his first game at 29 years old while Howie is coming right out of college. It is kind of funny to think about how many games I’m at while they are making their debut, but I still get the nerves for the first game. I’ll feed off their excitement,” said Henrique.

Knoblauch discussed the Oilers’ new PK system. It is more of a traditional box set up, and will require a lot of stops and starts from the forwards. “It will take a while for everyone to read off each other and get used to another. We just went to our forward duos and it will take a complete team effort. Last year we got off to a horrendous start with something like eight goals in 15 kills, so I hope it isn’t that bad,” said Knoblauch.

The Oilers’ PK was horrific to start last season. In their first two games they allowed five goals on six kills (16.7%). Through the first seven games they’d allowed 10 goals on 24 kills (54.6%). It didn’t get better right away either as after 15 games they’d allowed 16 goals on 39 kills (59.0%). The final 67 games the PK was quite respectable at 81.3%, as only eight teams finished the season above 81%, but the horrible start buried them.

Flames

Farabee-Kadri-Klapka
Gridin-Frost-Coronato
Zary-Backlund-Coleman
Lomberg-Kirkland-Sharangovich

Hanley-Weegar
Bahl-Andersson
Bean-Pachal

Wolf

Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil start the season on IR and will be out at least one week. Rookie Zayne Parekh won’t play tonight, but likely will draw in tomorrow in Vancouver. How long will Yegor Sharangovich play on the fourth line? They aren’t paying him $5.75m to play fourth line. They need him to be closer to the 31-goal scorer he was in 2024, rather than they player who scored 32 points last season. Matvei Gridin, their 2024 first round pick (28th overall) will start on their second line, but will he or Parekh remain with the Flames all season?

The Flames battled hard and finished with 96 points last season. They made no acquisitions in the off-season. They are hoping Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost (acquired mid-season from Philly) find their offense, along with Sharangovich, but if they don’t the Flames will need a heroic season from Dustin Wolf to be in the playoff hunt. I see the Flames taking a small step back this season.