Edmonton Oilers training camp preview 2024-25

Left defence

Mattias Ekholm, Darnell Nurse, Brett Kulak, Travis Dermott (PTO), Ben Gleason (recall option), Markus Niemelainen (recall option),

People will clown me for saying this about Darnell Nurse, but whether you like it or not he's a very good top four defenceman. If he could find a way to simplify his game and cut down the recurrent mistakes we see in it, I really believe the cannon fodder surrounding his contract would go away. The guy eats some of the more difficult minutes in the league and doesn't get credit for the things he does do well, and if Philip Broberg was placed into Nurse's role I think we'd see a bigger hole in the lineup than most might think.

That said, there is no doubt Nurse is in need of improvements in his d-zone coverage, which I have harped on countless times and won't do so again here. However, the overarching point is that your three defenceman down the left side being Ekholm, Nurse and Brett Kulak is stellar, trolls be darned.

Right defence

Evan Bouchard, Troy Stetcher, Ty Emberson, Josh Brown, Phil Kemp (recall option), Max Wanner (recall option)

This is where things get incredibly dicey for the Edmonton Oilers and doesn't inspire a ton of confidence in their pursuit of a Stanley Cup. I think Troy Stetcher is a helluva hockey player with a compete level as good as any. I also have a hunch that Ty Emberson could be a very good player in the making based off of his very impressive analytics from last season, playing on a very unimpressive San Jose Sharks team.

The problem is that running one of these two with Nurse on your second pair (likely to be Stetcher) just doesn't scream Stanley Cup contender defence, as crude as that sounds. When comparing to other teams in the league who have the same aspirations, this group seems orders of magnitude less talented then say New Jersey or Las Vegas.

Can the Oilers afford to run the experiment with the aforementioned Stetcher and Emberson until the deadline is the big question right now and the answer is, probably, yes. I don't think it's bad enough that it will derail their hopes of getting above the playoff line. Is it good enough to win a Stanley Cup? Probably not.

Goalies

Stuart Skinner, Calvin Pickard, Olivier Rodrigue (recall option)

There is no intrigue at this position other than, can Calvin Pickard play 30 games and insure the Oilers win most of them? I think he can and by all accounts he's one of the most liked players in the dressing room, which makes you think the guys want to play hard for him. I also would like to see Olivier Rodrigue get some NHL action this year to see what he can do, but that's unlikely to happen until the end of the year.