Earlier this week the Oilers announced they had inked one of the top NCAA college free agents, Ryan Fanti, to a contract for the rest of this year plus the next two. The contract is on an amateur tryout, or ATO, for the rest of this season and the next two after that on a two way contract for $762,500 per season (NHL salary).
The Oilers haven’t gone the college free agent route in awhile, not since the decade of darkness by my count, when their prospect pool was still very shallow due to horrible drafting for most of the franchise’s existence.
Like most people I don’t have insider information to share, but I believe the Oilers may have gone this route for a couple of reasons: 1) This year’s draft is poised to be not very deep, especially in comparison to 2023 which is apparently very deep. If I had to guess the Oilers scouting department took a look at the names from Central Scouting and decided nobody was worth pursuing in the draft. 2) They’ll need to replace both goaltenders within the next two seasons as both are close to the age when NHLers typically drop off a cliff and thus both will need to be replaced.
In this regard, Fanti doesn’t have much opposition in his way as he only has Stuart Skinner to leap over, and there’s a good chance he could challenge for a spot after a season in Bakersfield, if his play at the pro ranks follows the same quick learning pattern as his college years (which of course is no guarantee).
If you look at the incumbents in Bakersfield right now – Olivier Rodrigue and Ilya Konovalov – neither of them are close to NHL ready yet as both have spent either one or two seasons on the farm and neither has managed a sv% above .900 yet in the North American pros. Both of them will need more seasoning, which isn’t all that unusual for goaltenders who are 21 and 23 respectively.
The advantage of college free agents is they typically come to the NHL as more of a finished product as a human being, largely at the height and weight that they’ll be at for most of their careers. They’ve also gotten the partying out of their systems, which is something that 18 and 19 year olds are susceptible to, and are ready to get on with their lives.
So, in theory at least, Fanti has a chance to leapfrog past at least two out of three prospects right away. Between the lack of NHL ready competition, and the combination of the forward and defence skaters in front of him, I’m not surprised Fanti chose the Oilers out of other teams who came calling to him. Edmonton represents his chance for a career in the show the quickest out of more established tandems in the NHL.
But even more than the individual, I believe the signing of Fanti gives us a clue as to what dominoes will fall next in the organization. This is why what would normally be more of an afterthought signing, becomes more significant. Let’s go through that now.