The Edmonton Oilers currently have ten defensemen who played NHL games last season.

Most would agree the top five D-men are Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Jake Walman, Connor Murphy, and Ryan Shea. Bouchard is their top-pair right defenceman, will run the power play, and he will play the most minutes. Murphy is the second-pair right D-man and will anchor the first penalty kill unit. Those are the only two spots in the lineup I feel are locks when training camp begins. How will D.J. Smith deploy the rest of his defence corps?

Ekholm, Walman, and Shea are the top three left defenders. Shea was on the top penalty kill unit in Pittsburgh last season, and they had the sixth-best penalty kill in the league. He will be part of the Oilers’ penalty kill, but we aren’t sure if he will be paired with Murphy.

Shea thrives on defending. “Being a good defender is mostly about being competitive,” said Shea last week on my show on Sports 1440. “You have to compete, but I also feel I have a good stick, and I can defend well with my stick and body. I hate getting scored on, and I take a lot of pride in not getting outscored.”

Ekholm is getting older, and this is the first year of his new three-year, $4 million AAV deal. At some point during this contract, he won’t be the top-pair LD, but will that happen this season? Bouchard played 1465 minutes at five-on-five last season, and he played 1215 minutes with Ekholm. He played 119 with Darnell Nurse and 59 minutes with Walman. Bouchard was paired with Ekholm for 83 per cent of his minutes and in the playoffs, it dipped to 76 per cent (82 of 108). But D.J. Smith wasn’t the head coach. With a shorter training camp and only four preseason games, and a maximum of two games for veterans with 100+ games of experience, I could see Smith starting the season with the Ekholm/Bouchard pairing.

Who will play with Murphy at 5×5? Last year Murphy and Nurse emerged as a very good pair, especially in the playoffs. Murphy is your classic second pair, defensive-minded, first unit penalty kill defender. Will Smith

Smith coached Bouchard at the World Championships. He raved about Bouchard’s game, but I don’t expect Bouchard to average 24:41/game this season. Bouchard led Oilers D-men with 147 minutes on the PK last year. Don’t expect that this season. Head coach Mike Babcock has stated his top guys won’t play as much, and removing Bouchard from the penalty kill is an easy way to lower his minutes. He averaged 1:48/game and if that drops down to about :30 then Bouchard will average around 23 minutes/game, which makes sense.

I don’t need Bouchard on the penalty kill. I’d play Murphy and Ty Emberson, or whoever is the third pair RD. It’s not that Bouchard can’t do it, but moreso he doesn’t need to. And if we look at how D.J. Smith deployed his blueliners last season, it seems obvious Bouchard won’t be on the top two PK units.

The Kings blueline was very healthy last season with Brian Dumoulin, Cody Ceci, Joel Edmundson and Brandt Clarke playing all 82 games. Mikey Anderson played 80 while Drew Dougthy played 72. Smith didn’t have to alter his blueline much and here’s how he deployed them at 5×5.

Anderson (1411 minutes), Clarke (1345), Doughty (1333, but averaged most/game), Dumoulin (1298), Edmundson (1257) and Ceci (1244).

Anderson played 910 minutes with Doughty and 264 with Ceci.
Edmundson played 1003 with Clarke and 124 with Anderson.
Dumoulin played 769 with Ceci and 252 with Doughty.

His top pair was Anderson and Doughty, then Clarke/Edmundson and Dumoulin/Ceci. He would switch Doughty and Ceci at times, or when Doughty was out of the lineup.

However, on the penalty kill, he didn’t keep those pairs together. His top four penalty kill guys were Edmundson (199 min), Anderson (182), Ceci (161), Dumoulin (109) and Doughty (92). Clarke didn’t kill penalties.

Edmundson was paired with Anderson (109) or Ceci (73). Ceci played 77 with Dumoulin and 73 with Edmundson.

Anderson and Edmundson were the top pair, while Ceci anchored the second pair and swapped partners depending on who was out prior to the penalty.

I could see Smith running Shea/Murphy as the top PK unit and then Ekholm with Emberson or Shakir Mukhamadullin while Walman rotates in as well. Bouchard will get some PK time, but I’d have him fifth or sixth on the PK depth chart. Not because he can’t kill, rather he doesn’t need to, and having him more fresh at even strength will benefit the team.

Barring injury, Bouchard, Ekholm, Murphy, Walman, and Shea will be regulars in the lineup, and that leaves one spot up for grabs.

Ty Emberson, Shakir Mukhamadullin, Spencer Stastney, and Alec Regula will battle for the #6 and #7 spots on the roster. With the Oilers carrying three goalies, at least to start the season, Edmonton will have room for one extra forward and one extra D-man.

Today, I’d say Emberson and Mukhamadullin have the inside track on those two spots. Emberson is a right shot and would play his natural side, while Mukhamadullin shoots left, but he played a lot on the right side last year. Emberson is the most physical of the group and has the most experience with 178 games played. Regula is the biggest, and has the most offensive upside. Mukhamadullin has the highest overall potential, while Stastney is the underdog (in my eyes). Stastney doesn’t provide much offence; he isn’t physical, is the smallest of the group, and we’ve yet to see what his defining trait is as a player.

Regula didn’t play in 2025, but when he was sent down to Bakersfield and got to play regularly, he showed a lot of confidence handling the puck, and his patience with the puck is what stood out most. He’s also a right-shot, and playing his natural side will help him an Emberson. Riley Stillman played a few games last year and Josh Brown, who didn’t play in the NHL last year, has previous NHL experience, but him beating out three of Mukhamadullin, Stastney, Regula and Emberson seems like a real long shot.

The challenge for these D-men will be the short timeline they have to impress Smith and Babcock. The coaches will watch video on the players to get an idea of their strengths, and who might best fit into the style Babcock wants the Oilers to play. GM Stan Bowman acquired all four of them. He got Emberson in an August trade in 2024. He claimed Regula on waivers from Boston in December of 2024. He acquired Stastney from Nashville for a third-round pick this past December and acquired Mukhamadullin in a trade for Darnell Nurse last week.

The manager liked all of them enough to acquire them, and now it will be up to them to impress their new coaching staff. It is a new slate for all of them, but it is a short one. The Oilers have four preseason games on September 19th, 22nd, 24th and 26th. I doubt they have a player play all four games, and Emberson and Stastney can only play twice, so they will need to make those games count. I could see them playing the two road games on the 22nd and 24th. In the past few years, we rarely saw the top players play on the road, and I could see the top defencemen playing the home games on the 19th and 26th.

D.J. Smith has shown he likes to keep his pairs together (when healthy), but with Nurse being traded and Shea coming in and the battle for the third-pair RD, he will likely try a few different combinations to see what he likes.

— The NHL will announce home openers next Wednesday, and the full schedule will come out on Thursday. This will be the third season in NHL history with each team playing 84 games. We saw 84 games in 1993 and 1994. In 1993 the NHL had 14 players score 50 goals and 21 reached 100 points, but that dropped to nine 50-goal men in 1994 and eight 100 point scorers. We won’t see those totals in 2027.

In the salary cap era, the most 50-goal scorers in one season is five in 2006 and 2023. In the 21 seasons only 22 players have tallied 50 goals and only seven including Alex Ovechkin (9x), Leon Draisaitl (4x) and  Dany Heatley, Ilya Kovalchuk, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews and Steven Stamkos (2x) did it multiple times.

Meanwhile, the 2023 season produced 11 players with 100+ points, while we had nine in 2024 and eight in 2026 and 2022. We might see 11 again this season with the additional two games.

— The Edmonton Oilers were interested in Claude Giroux, and they had talks, but he never seriously considered signing in Edmonton. It makes sense. He’s played in the East his entire career, and it is extremely rare to see players in their late 30s sign with a team in the West after spending their entire career in the easier travel of the East.

— When you are planning your opening night roster, remember that if Isaac Howard (who doesn’t need waivers) is on the opening day roster, then if sent down later, he can be recalled and only carry a $972,500 cap hit. If he isn’t on the opening day roster but is recalled later in the year, he’d carry a $1.639 million cap hit. Josh Samanski is in a similar position, and if on the opening day roster, he’s a $975,000 cap hit, but if not and recalled later, then he carries a $1.462 million cap hit. Even though the Oilers should start the season with a lot of cap space, I don’t see them wanting to waste any, thus I expect both to be on the roster on day one.

— Colton Dach is the only player without a contract. The Oilers and his representatives are talking and I could see a two-year deal between $1.2-1.4 million. Dach has sneaky good hands, is physical, can skate, and he brings a lot of energy on and off the ice. He could be a very good value player for the Oilers as he continues to grow and develop. The Oilers need his personality.

— When Dach signs, the Oilers will have 15 forwards battling for 13 spots. McDavid, Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Matt Savoie, Vasily Podkolzin, Jason Dickinson, Kasperi Kapanen, Trent Frederic, and Dach are locks for me. Which leaves three spots between Howard, Samanski, Mathieu Joseph, Mattias Janmark, and Max Jones. Samanski is the only centre, which gives him the inside track, and I believe Howard will be given every opportunity to make the team. So the three J’s will battle for the final spot.

Janmark has battled shoulder issues the past two seasons. That limited his ability to make plays, and it showed in his lack of offence. He only has three goals in his last 123 NHL games over the past two seasons and seven goals in his previous 194 games. Was is just due to a wonky shoulder, or has he lost his ability to score? Oddly enough, he has seven goals in his last 47 playoff games over the past three seasons. He is a good skater and a very smart player, who rarely makes the wrong decision defensively, but not providing any offence has him battling for his spot in the lineup. If he is put on waivers, I could see a team claim him due to his penalty kill prowess and skating ability, but that depends on how he looks in preseason. He is far from a lock to be claimed.

Jones got injured in camp last season, and he had to play catch-up in the minors. When he was recalled later, he played well. Joseph had two goals in 51 games last year between St. Louis and Los Angeles. In 2024, he produced 11 goals and 35 points with Ottawa. All three veterans shoot left. They possess different skill sets, and I’m interested to see who Babcock opts to go with then the season begins.

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