Plenty riding on Ty Emberson being a success with the Oilers

Last season saw the Edmonton Oilers make excellent progress defensively, under the astute and calm leadership and tutelage of coach Kris Knoblauch. As a result, they improved from ranking 17th in fewest goals allowed the season before, up to 10th best.

This improved play at their own end of the ice, undoubtedly also contributed towards the Oilers returning to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2005-06. With this in mind, there's no denying the blue line is no longer as strong, following the loss of Philip Broberg and Cody Ceci.

This has led to questions about what the Oilers will do to improve their defence, particularly at the right-hand shot position? As we've already written, options include a reunion with Tyson Barrie via a PTO, and just waiting until this coming season and potentially making a trade somewhere around the deadline.

In respect of the second option, this would mean hoping the current defensive roster can prove it is collectively good enough to succeed without Broberg and Ceci. Which is a where a recent addition comes into play.

Emberson could prove key on the blue line

More specifically we're talking about Ty Emberson, who was acquired last weekend as part of the trade which sent Ceci and a 2025 third round draft pick to the San Jose Sharks. The question is, what does he potentially bring to Edmonton?

Of course 'potentially' is the key word in that previous sentence. Emberson is still largely unproven at this stage, while having also already shown glimpses of what he is capable of.

The 2018 73rd overall draft pick finally made his NHL debut last season, with the Sharks. He played 30 games in total, producing 10 points (one goal and nine assists), six penalty minutes and a -4 rating, while averaging 18:33 of ice time per contest.

Plenty to be encouraged by

In fairness this was encouraging for a young player getting his first taste of NHL experience, particularly with a team which would end up with the league's worst record in 2023-24. Emberson's durable, has decent puck-handling skills, some offensive ability and is a possible shutdown defenceman.

Now with a (much) stronger overall team, the 24-year-old is in a better position to succeed, especially combined with playing for such an excellent coach in Knoblauch. And in a lot of the ways, the Oilers both want and need him to succeed.

As a right-shot defenceman, Emberson could really save the Oilers a lot of trouble if he can embrace the challenge in Edmonton and settle in. At the very least he can be part of a solid third pairing, but if we're being greedy, possibly even team up with Darnell Nurse as the second pairing.

A business element to consider

We appreciate this is all a lot to put on a young man, who is still new to the NHL in the grand scheme of things. However, there's also a contract aspect to factor in to all of this.

Consider that prior to being traded from San Jose, Emberson signed a one-year contract extension with the Sharks, for $950,000. However, his deal comes with a caveat, which is now transferred to the Oilers.

As per PuckPedia, the caveat is that the Eau Claire, Wisconsin native needs to play at least 50 games in 2024-25 with the Oilers, in order for him to remain a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. If not, he will become eligible to be a Group Six unrestricted free agent.

In fairness, 50 games is a lot to expect from someone who is still relatively unknown on the NHL stage, no matter how much promise he might have already shown. There's also other factors which could influence this, including injury - relevant because Emberson suffered several injuries during the 2023-24 campaign, including one which ended his season in February.

Overall, there's plenty to like about the Oilers acquiring Emberson from the Sharks. At the same time however, there's no guarantees about how he will perform in Edmonton, but Stan Bowman and company will sure be hoping he can succeed.

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