Oilers are active on the trade market according to Elliotte Friedman

In the first edition of 'Saturday Headlines' for the 2026-27 NHL season, the weekly segment during the second intermission of Saturday Night Hockey broadcast (formerly Hockey Night in Canada), was as impactful as you would hope.

This is not a tough task to accomplish when the man delivering the news is the NHL's most well connected insider, Elliotte Friedman. He revealed that the Edmonton Oilers were pursuing a trade in what he called a 'lateral move' to swap one of their defencemen for a forward, to help fill the gap with their long list of injuries.

The Oilers are currently dipping into long term injured reserve in order to maintain their salary cap compliance with the sheer amount of names that are sidelined. This currently gives the Oilers some cap flexibility but being able to make moves, makes the most sense for the team, especially with the report that they would be trading from a place of strength.

Oilers have multiple trade candidates on defence

The Oilers entered the 2026-27 season with eight defencemen on their roster (excluding Alec Regula who is on LTIR). Aside from those eight, plus Regula who is currently unavailable, the team has a number of defencemen in their system who could move up the depth chart if need be.

Currently on the roster for their American Hockey League affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, the Oilers have two additional defencemen with NHL experience. Defencemen Josh Brown and Riley Stillman who have a combined over 450 games played in the NHL at 300 and 167, respectively. Then, there is Atro Leppanen and Damien Carfagna who had some impressive play during the Oilers' training camp last month.

If the team is able to use one of the defenders off their depth chart to acquire a forward with some NHL experience who can slot in while they try to get by with their injuries, they should. Trading from a position of strength to address a weakness is the definition of a 'hockey trade' and with the Oilers' logjam on their backend, making a move could be beneficial for the players involved and another team.

Defencemen like Spencer Stastney or Ty Emberson have found themselves sitting out at times to start the year, being healthy scratched for two of the Oilers' first three games. In Saturday's contest, Shakir Mukhamadullin was scratched in favour of Emberson, which could indicate that his name may be on the block.

All three defencemen are under 27 years old, something that could be an intriguing sell for a prospective buyer. They all have some youth and potential to work with, something that may allow them to fetch a better asset in return.

News around the NHL

There were a number of storylines and rumours that were updated aside from the Oilers. The big one being that Detroit Red Wings restricted free agent defenceman, Simon Edvinsson, is wanting to be traded as him and the Red Wings continue their contract stalemate.

Edvinsson now joins Red Wings' former captain Dylan Larkin to have requested a trade from the organization as they are in the midst of a 10-year playoff drought. The club last qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2015-16.

As well, Friedman provided an update on the injury to Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov who appears to have suffered a major leg injury for the second straight season. He will be further evaluated Monday but there is hope that he has avoided the worst case scenario.

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