Revisiting the 2022 NHL entry draft - how did the Oilers make out?
Ah 2022 - the end of the pandemic lockdowns. Finally most if not all of the jobs that were present prior to the pandemic came back. The NHL realigned it's divisions to cross border divisions once again, and a full capacity of fans were allowed back in, masking and vaccination protocols notwithstanding - and the players had to follow the same protocols. As for the Oilers, Ken Holland continued to weave his magic remaking the Oilers in his image - and considering that the Oilers had finally made the playoffs for two years in a row at this point, I'd say that was a good thing. Let's see how this draft worked out.
First round - Reid Schaefer, 32nd overall - the Oilers were originally slated to pick 29th in this round but they swapped picks with the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for Zack Kassian, a third-round pick in 2024, and a second-round pick in 2025 - this first round pick originally belonged to Colorado who flipped it to Arizona in exchange for goalie Darcy Kuemper.
Local Edmonton boy Schaefer originally caught the eye of Oilers scouts after going 32-26-58 with 88 PIMs and a +29 in 66 games for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL, breaking out after only two assists in 18 games the previous season. He then wrapped up his junior career with a bang, going 28-33-61 with a sparkling +30 and 92 PIMs in 55 games. His emergence also helped the Thunderbirds the last two seasons in the playoffs, as he put up 21 points in 25 games for the Thunderbirds in his draft year followed by 19 points in 19 games the year after as the Thunderbirds lost in the WHL finals to the Edmonton Oil Kings, who would go on to be out early in the Memorial Cup tournament.
Schaefer's time in the Oilers organization wouldn't last long, however, as he was included as part of the trade package for Mattias Ekholm at the 2023 trade deadline. It was thus last season that he made his AHL debut with the Predators' farm team the Milwaukee Admirals, putting up 7-14-21 with 39 PIMs and a +1 in 63 games.
A very modest start to his pro career but one season does not make a player, thus I don't feel I can judge him as a prospect at this point.
Fun fact - Matt Savoie, now the Oilers' top prospect after they traded Ryan Mcleod to Buffalo for him, was drafted ninth overall by the Sabres in the first round of this year's draft.
Trending up or down? The jury's still out depends on how he does in his follow-up AHL season.
Did the Oilers miss out on anyone? Seeing as how this was literally the last pick of the first round, that would be impossible. It's possible the Oilers may miss Schaefer himself in the coming years, but it's worth noting that Savoie as a prospect is an upgrade on Schaefer.
Second round - no pick, traded away to Montreal along with William Lagesson and a seventh-round pick in 2024 in exchange for blueliner Brett Kulak, who remains an Oiler to this day.
Third round - no pick, traded away along with Caleb Jones in exchange for prospect Tim Soderlund and blueliner Duncan Keith. Soderlund never went anywhere but Keith played his last season for the Oilers before retiring and joining them in player development.
Fourth round - no pick, traded away to New Jersey in exchange for rental d-man Dmitry Kulikov at the 2022 trade deadline
Fifth round - Samuel Jonsson, 158th overall
Samuel Jonsson is a Swedish goalie who hasn't left his area of the pond yet, and his stats are spotty at best. After two years in the Swedish junior leagues oddly enough he was called up by his Swedish pro league team (were injuries really that bad for them that season? Weird) for four games where he got no starts but did some relief time (no stats available). He then went back to the Swedish juniors where although his stats are nothing more than average at least he played more games, moving the dial on his career slightly. He then graduated to the Swedish minor leagues, where he's played four games for two different teams over two seasons, most recently putting up a 3.75 GAA and a .884 sv% in three games for Bofors IK. It's hard to say exactly what we have here with Jonsson, but it's worth noting that he remains on the Oilers reserve list, one of just four goalies there, so I'm not ready to give up on him yet and clearly neither are the Oilers.
Trending up or down? Down slightly, with the caveat that he hasn't played nearly enough games to know what we have in this player just yet. Failing to impress in four minor league games and pro relief appearances in four pro games is hardly a condemnation of the player. From a developmental perspective, if Jonsson continues to be buried down the order on his Swedish minor league team, it might be worthwhile to bring him across the ocean to play in the ECHL for Fort Wayne and see what he can do there, calling him up to Bakersfield if he shows potential. The task of what to do with him now falls on Duncan Keith, Stan Bowman, Jeff Salajko (head of goalie scouting and development), and Dustin Schwartz (may the Schwartz be with you, Sammy).
Sixth round - Nikita Yevseyev, 190th overall
The Oilers gambled on defenceman Yevseyev with this pick, who as you can probably guess from his name is Russian. Drafted after he put up seven points in 14 games for his Russian junior team (the previous season, his rookie season in pro hockey, he had almost split time between his junior team and the Russian minor leagues). The following season it appears he started in the Russian minor leagues but only played two games before getting called up to Ak-Bars Kazan of the KHL, where he put up five goals and seven points in 47 games with a +7 to boot, and immediately followed that up in the playoffs with 1-3-4 in 22 games. He's followed that up since then bouncing around between the Russian minor leagues and the KHL, so at this point it appears he is nothing more than a KHL bubble player. But, as with Jonsson, you have to take this with a grain of salt as Yevseyev has only played 69 KHL games so we don't know exactly what we have with this player, he's only 20 years old and may just break out for us. Just as with Jonsson, he remains on the Oilers reserve list, one of six defenders there. I see flashes of potential in his numbers, unlike with Jonsson where they've been flat across the board, so let's call him a project who's trending up ever so slightly.
Trending up or down? Trending up, very slightly. His numbers show potential, but we need to see more KHL games to know exactly what we have with this player. He needs to achieve these goals in the following order - 1) Secure a spot in the KHL and stay there all season long 2) Come to Bakersfield and do well in the AHL, and last but not least 3) Show enough potential that he either makes the Oilers or can be included as a trade chip with another team. At this point, any combination of things could happen. He may be nothing more than a KHL bubble player, or he may only be able to play in the KHL. Maybe he comes to Bakersfield but his game doesn't translate to the North American pro leagues, it's happened before and it'll keep happening to some Europeans. Or maybe he can be an NHL bubble player - a Brad Malone type who's good enough to play regularly in the AHL and in spot duty in the NHL. Or he may be an NHL regular and thrive here, just like lots of Russians in the past, such as Alex Ovechkin, Sergei Federov, or Alex Mogilny, amongst a host of others.
Seventh round - Joel Maata, 222nd overall
Maata has taken a very interesting route through his player development. He hasn't played a single game in his home country of Finland, choosing instead to start his hockey career in the USHL where the forward showed some potential (albeit with a "project" label attached to him).
In his first season in the USHL for the Sioux City Musketeers, he put up 11 goals and 25 points in 43 games with a -8, then followed that up with 9-11-20 in 52 games with a -3. He then chose to go to the US College Route for the University of Vermont, putting up even more unspectacular numbers in three years there so far, putting no more than seven goals and 14 points in a season - both not so coincidentally in the same season - in which he played 36 games, which stands as his US College high at this point. Even more disappointing is that Maata has been between -4 and -10 during those three years.
It's easy to see why Maata was a seventh-round pick - with these kinds of numbers he's really nothing more than a throw against the dartboard, seeing if he sticks. He remains on the Oilers reserve list, however unlike Yevseyev or Jonsson, he's not one of a single digit group of guys as the Oilers have 10 guys on the reserve list at the forward position, so unless Maata moves the needle significantly either offensively or defensively and breaks out in his last year of US college hockey, I don't see him as having a pro career of any sort, unless the Oilers sign him to Fort Wayne as ECHL fodder. Perhaps Maata regrets the route he took in his development and would've been better off staying in Finland - but that's only a question he can answer.
Trending up or down? Down for sure at this point. His pro dreams aren't over, but they are on life support. He's going to have to break out in his last year of US College hockey, so he sets himself apart in some way from the rest of his competition on the reserve list. Perhaps when I revisit this series in the future I'll know if I was right about him or not.
Overall verdict
It's hard to say much about this draft considering we're only two years removed from it. Holland effectively removed three bullets from the chamber to make trades for the present, and since the Oilers were playoff contenders at this point, I can't say I blame him. It was effectively at this point that the future took a back seat to the present and the Oilers were in win-now mode.
I suspect the 2022 draft year may not be known so much for the Oilers' own picks but in trading for Matt Savoie, something we can thank what at the time was interim GM Jeff Jackson for, not Ken Holland.
For now, all we can say is Schaefer shows potential but isn't off to a good start in his pro career, while two of the latter three prospects in Jonssen and Yevseyev are trending either slightly up or down, while Maata is in a make or break season as a prospect and at this point looks to be a seventh round pick that is a failure to launch - which for the record isn't terrible for a seventh-round pick, in fact, if you're going to fail on a pick then the seventh-round is the ideal place to do it.
Bonus material
Ex-Oiler Tyson Barrie signs a PTO with the Flames
A player rumored to be someone coming to the Oilers in the form of Tyson Barrie has now, at least temporarily, come to the Flames on a PTO contract (Professional Try Out). There is a bit of a misconception amongst some out there that this means the player is now Calgary Flames property, but that's not actually true. A Professional Try Out is nothing more than getting a temporary audition with the team, so the Flames will be paying all of Barrie's bills within reason during his stay in Calgary under the length of his contract - which is usually about 10 days for most PTOs, so this means hotels (unless a current player has already invited him to stay with them for the duration of his PTO), meals, hygiene items, a rental car, perhaps an incidental or two, and then by the end, the player is simply released from the contract and at that point the Flames can either offer Barrie a full-fledged one way NHL contract or let him walk at which time the player will get back to the drawing board and figure out how to resume his career.
However, it's important to note a PTO is different from a regular NHL contract. Just because a team signs a guy to a PTO, doesn't mean he's that team's property - which is what a regular NHL contract means. It's strictly an audition, and the player is still free to sign with whichever team he wants to either during or after the PTO's expiration date. Puckpedia provides clarity in case you're confused right now.
As another example from the recent past, in 2016 the Oilers signed Kris Versteeg to a PTO, and offered him a regular one way contract, only to be spurned by Versteeg as he chose to sign with the Flames instead. There was nothing illegal about what the Flames did because it's not against the rules to offer a contract to someone who has only signed a PTO with another team, either during or after the contract is done, whereas if a player signed a full fledged one way contract he is then unable to sign with another team until that contract is up.
Personally, my money is on the Oilers paying attention to how Tyson Barrie's PTO is going and if they like what they see will snake him from the Flames, offer him a low end contract for one year, and bring him in to QB the second unit PP, providing the Oilers with a lethal 1-2 punch from the blueline on their PP, making it even better than last year. Of course, he'll have a bigger role on the Flames, but the team in Edmonton is so much better - the Oilers are a cup contender while Calgary is in the infancy of a forced rebuild, having lost most of their core players to free agency and trade requests over the last few seasons.
dark. Next. Edmonton is now the place to be for NHL players. Edmonton is now the place to be for NHL players
Barrie's stock is low right now because after he was the centerpiece of the trade from the Oilers side that brought Mattias Ekholm here and he went to Nashville, his career stalled because not only was he buried behind Roman Josi on the Preds PP, but eventually he became a healthy scratch on a lot of nights. That trade was very much to the detriment of Barrie himself despite the fact it made the Oilers much better. He wasn't happy in Nashville and never wanted to leave Edmonton in the first place. I suspect he'd jump at the chance to come back if GM Stan Bowman gives him that chance - I'm sure his players who were his teammates can fill Bowman in on what he brings to the table.
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