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WWYDW: How do the Oilers get cap complaint when fully healthy?
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Photo credit: © Marc DesRosiers-Imagn Images
Michael Menzies
Dec 31, 2025, 19:00 ESTUpdated: Dec 31, 2025, 19:36 EST
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The Edmonton Oilers have been squeezing the nickel until the beaver squeals, as close to the salary cap ceiling as they can with their current roster. 
If there’s one benefit to the volume of injuries they’ve endured, it’s that the hard salary cap decisions have been delayed. 
The past week has seen David Tomášek‘s $1.2-million cap hit terminated, and Noah Philp being claimed via waivers which means his $775K is not a concern. 
What does Stan Bowman do when Jake Walman ($3.4-million) and Kasperi Kapanen ($1.3-million) are ready to go and their full cap hit counts? Both are listed as day-to-day on Long Term Injured Reserve, and Kapanen took part in his first full practice on Wednesday. They’ll be ready to return sooner than later. 
The Oilers have $1.812-million in cap space and are projected to be $2.8979-million over the cap at full strength, according to PuckPedia. 
They cannot activate Walman until they create the cap space, never mind both. Kapanen can be activated without any major issue. 
Tristan Jarry and his current $5.3-million cap hit still count towards the Oilers cap. Unless his injury is prolonged and he’s out for longer than projected, then maybe that’s an avenue using LTIR. But then you’re still without your starting goaltender. 

Walman first

Bear with me, I’m no capologist, nor did I excel in math. To get Walman activated, Max Jones ($1-million) and Riley Stillman ($775K) will need to go down. 
  • So $1.75-million (Jones & Stillman) + $1.812-million (available cap space) = $3.562M in cap space. 
That’s enough to activate Walman, but leaves them two roster players short, and with $187,500 in cap space. 
Then comes the decision in goal. Despite Calvin Pickard playing like Dominik Hasek when his NHL career is threatened, Connor Ingram is shining brightly. He’d be my choice to stay up, but Jarry would need to return before Kapanen could in this scenario as the Oilers need to dress two goalies. 
Ingram is $1.15-million to Pickard’s $1-million. 
Sending Pickard down to Bakersfield makes the available cap space, including their LTIR pool, $1,187,500, but it’s still not enough to finesse Kapanen back in at $1.3-million. 

Kapanen

Conversely, activating Kapanen first
  • $1.812-million (cap space) – $1.3-million (Kapanen)  = $0.512-million aka $512,500 in cap space with the LTIR pool and -$2,897,919 in actual cap space, which would be needed to bring back Walman. 
  • Sending down Jones, Pickard and Stillman opens $3,287,500 in space with LTIR pool.
And those moves still leave them $1.863-million short of being under the cap.
The rub is that Jarry must return to the lineup before Walman to send down Pickard. Meaning a trade might be in the offing…

Enter Andrew Mangiapane

The Mangiapane marriage hasn’t been fruitful, leading to speculation his time is running out in Edmonton. He carries a $3.6-million cap hit. It would behoove the Oilers to deal Mangiapane with no retention for a cheaper and more effective. 
But every team wants to trade their ineffective players for cheaper options. Doesn’t mean it will happen though. Or, the Oilers may have to retain money on Mangiapane, or attach a draft pick. 
A straight Mangiapane for a draft pick trade seems unlikely given the Oilers, ya know, still want to improve the roster. 
The Oilers could be in a scenario where they ask Mattias Janmark or Adam Henrique to waive their modified no-trade or no-move clauses, cap issues or not, if there are any other desired upgrades Bowman looks to make. But they could just say no. 
And truth be told, moving either wouldn’t clear up enough cap space to activate Walman.
It begs the question: What would you do? 

ARTICLE PRESENTED BY bet365

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