Different year, same story. Among the issues throughout the Edmonton Oilers’ underwhelming start to the season has been a lack of depth scoring.
Leon Draisaitl is tied for the league lead in goals with 12 and Connor McDavid is second on the team with five. After those two, defencemen Evan Bouchard and Brett Kulak are tied for third in goals with four each.
The Oilers need their other forwards to get going. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman, Jeff Skinner, and Viktor Arvidsson have combined for only 11 goals through the team’s first 16 games while playing mostly top-six minutes. Last spring’s excellent third line of Adam Henrique, Connor Brown, and Mattias Janmark has only produced five goals between the trio.
If the team’s depth scoring issues persist, adding a winger might become a priority for the front office. One player to keep an eye on is Nils Hoglander of the Vancouver Canucks, who seems to have found himself in head coach Rick Tocchet’s doghouse.
After scoring 24 goals (all at even strength) for the Canucks in 2023-24, Hoglander has struggled to start the 2024-25 campaign, with only two goals and five points through 14 games. He spent most of his time last season playing feature minutes with Elias Pettersson but has recently found himself on Vancouver’s fourth line, logging just 9:23 in their most recent win over the Calgary Flames.
Though Hoglander recently inked a three-year extension worth $3 million annually, it’s entirely possible the Canucks decide to make a move before that deal kicks in.
President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford earned the nickname “Trader Jim” because of his willingness to swing deals with any team at any time and general manager Patrik Allvin has followed in his footsteps. Vancouver moved Nikita Zadorov and Elias Pettersson to the Calgary Flames in two separate deals last season well before the trade deadline and the Canucks recently dumped free-agent addition Daniel Sprong after just nine games with the club.
Given the situation, this might be an opportunity for the Oilers to add a skilled winger for pennies on the dollar. Selected with the 40th overall pick in the 2019 draft, Hoglander has scored 52 goals and 95 points over 235 NHL games and has posted strong underlying numbers.

Other quick notes from around the NHL…

  • While at the general manager meetings in Toronto this week, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reported that just 55 of the 708 skaters who have suited up in the NHL this season are wearing neck guards. That’s only 7.7 percent of players, which seems low one year after Adam Johnson’s tragic on-ice death while playing professionally for the Nottingham Panthers in Britain last October. According to Seravalli, the NHL Players’ Association has pushed back against mandating a league-wide equipment change on the basis of individual player choice and comfort.
  • This year’s GM meetings also featured some early discussions about the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, as the current one is set to expire on September 15, 2026. According to Seravalli, some of the things that are on the table include: “anything from further limiting contract term in length, the arbitration process, instituting a salary cap for the playoffs, reimagining LTIR usage, the post-trade deadline recall rule, or even the regular season schedule format.”