The Oilers have completely turned around their season from the previous calendar year.

They’re sitting in a good spot right now, 6-4-0 in their last 10 and having lost only four games all season at home in Rogers Place. Most importantly, they’re leading the division, albeit only by a single point, as Vegas and Anaheim (of all teams) are hot on their heels as the latter two clubs sit tied for second in the division. That doesn’t mean the team is without problems – the bottom six forward group is collectively not chipping in as much secondary offence as we’d like, and the wingers on the top six have all gone through spells of injury, so they haven’t been able to chip in as consistently as we’d like.

And then there’s the goaltending. Since the Stuart Skinner trade, Tristan Jarry showed well, especially in his third start, where he had a .923 save percentage as the Oilers got a 3-1 win against Boston but unfortunately, one of Jarry’s warts showed as he got injured in that game, as he’s been an injury-prone player most of his career. The only consolation is that Skinner isn’t doing that well with the Penguins since the trade, although four games is hardly enough of a sample size to write off his entire career there. To sub in for Jarry the Oilers called up Connor Ingram from Bakersfield despite the fact that Matt Tomkins was the lesser of the two evils in terms of numbers. Ingram has shown potential but has also struggled with consistency, as his numbers are not that great in the early going here. Again, this hardly spells the end of his career here but with the resurgence of Calvin Pickard it will mean a shorter leash until Jarry gets healthy again.

Also, inexplicably, Evan Bouchard wasn’t named to Team Canada’s roster despite the fact that he’s currently fourth in the league in scoring for defencemen. Meanwhile, Team Canada’s brass gave Thomas Harley a spot despite the fact that he’s put up a fraction of the points that Bouchard has. Harley even has a worse +/- than Bouchard does, so what gives? How much more does Bouchard have to do to earn a spot? Figure that one out.

Anyway, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the topic at hand.

Although Philp didn’t show much in terms of numbers and isn’t exactly irreplaceable, personally I still consider it a minor blow to the roster. Philp was a great story in terms of how he came up to the NHL — never drafted, a free agent out of the University of Alberta Golden Bears, then taking a year off hockey for personal reasons, earning a 15 game cup of coffee the previous season and becoming a regular this season. Philp’s stock was on the rise and I thought he showed great potential as a solid bottom six player.

One of Philp’s great strengths is he was a right shot centre and thus had an advantage in the faceoff circle over a lot of his opposition, which was shown by him winning 56.9 percent of his faceoffs this season, the majority of which came in the defensive zone. Since he was a rookie as expected he didn’t spend a lot of time on special teams, just 38 seconds of penalty kill time per game, but there’s no doubt in my mind that as Philp rounded out his game he would’ve been given more responsibility.

Taking his place the Oilers will be remaking the fourth line as Howard-Savoie-Hutson which Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Joural, and many here, have dubbed the new “Kid Line.”

If this line works out as well as the waning dynasty years kid line of Joe Murphy-Adam Graves-Martin Gelinas then the Oilers are in for a treat as that line was one of the biggest factors in the Oilers winning the Cup in 1990. Savoie is also a right shot center but hasn’t played center since junior so this will be interesting.

At least the Oilers will still have a right shot centre in the lineup.

This is not as compelling a story as Jones is an AHL bubble player who can hit but usually does little else, although it’s worth noting he scored a goal in his latest call-up here, so maybe there’s hope for him after all.

Jones was filling a roster spot for the injured Jack Roslovic, who is healthy again, and stuck around while Connor Clattenburg and Philp worked their way back from injuries. He had to be placed on waivers, and predictably cleared, as most teams have at least one of these guys in their organizations, so not nearly as much demand for him as there was for Philp.

He’s set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and with the upstart depth we’re seeing in Bakersfield — specifically with Clattenberg, who is a better version of Jones at a cheaper cap hit — I can’t see him being re-upped by the Oilers. But never say never. Stan Bowman has surprised us before.

To the surprise of no one, these two players have earned another NHL call-up. Hutson was sixth in the entire league in AHL scoring before the call-up and was absolutely killing it with 32 points and 19 goals in only 26 games. Howard, meanwhile, made the team out of camp but didn’t stick and was thus sent down to Bakersfield for a reboot — and reboot he did, scoring 10 goals and 23 points in only 16 games with a sparkling +12 to boot.

Centring the two wingers on that fourth line was the aforementioned youngster Matt Savoie, who has managed to stay up with the Oilers all season but with mixed results, having played up and down the lineup, currently down.

I see what head coach Kris Knoblauch was going for here before breaking them up — put all the young firepower on one line together, give them the softest competition the NHL has to offer, and in theory at least they should spark more offence from the bottom six forward group, specifically from the fourth line, and if they do well they might even displace Adam Henrique, Trent Frederic, and their right winger du jour as the third line. Who knows? Maybe once the contracts of older veterans are up, they might even start replacing guys in the top-six.

One of the blemishes on this season has been the play of Trent Frederic. A one-time regular in the top-six forward group of the Boston Bruins, who for two seasons straight flirted with the 20-goal mark, has so far been a failure as a trade and sign for Bowman. Although he sports a 55.1 percent faceoff percentage — albeit in a mere 89 faceoffs taken — and is second on the team to Vasily Podkolzin in hits with 102, for a guy making an inflated bottom-six contract for eight years, the expectations are greater.

Frederic sports the third-worst +/- on the team at -10, which is unacceptable for a veteran of 378 NHL games. He hasn’t produced a point since December 6th and hasn’t scored a goal since November 20th. Even against his old team in Boston, nothing but goose eggs. He only has 39 shots on goal on the season, too. To give you an example of what he’s capable of in those two seasons in Boston, where he had 17 and 18 goals, he had 120 and 123 shots on goal, and since we’re halfway through the season now, if he keeps up the same rate, he would finish just shy of 80 shots on goal. They’re not going in either, judging by his 5.1 percent shooting percentage, which is way off his career mark of 10.9 percent. We haven’t even seen him be that much of a factor physically, either, and that’s supposed to be one of his trademarks.

This is made all the worse by the fact that Bowman gave Frederic a no-movement clause for another three seasons after this one, meaning, unless he agrees to waive, it will be the 2029-30 season before we can even send him down to Bakersfield or trade him. Surely he’s not happy with his play either, as trade rumours are dogging Frederic already.

There’s even an outside chance of a buyout at this point. We’ll see how it plays out.