Which one of these Edmonton Oilers top prospects will make the biggest impact first: 9 Things

Edmonton Journal

a day ago

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One of the underlying themes of the upcoming Edmonton Oilers season will be 'a tale of two prospects'.
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With the Oilers squarely in their Stanley Cup Window, which one of these young, fast forwards will make the biggest impact…and by when?
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That and more in this edition of…
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9 Things
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9. The Oilers' 2025 Seventh Round pick Aidan Park has been invited to the 2025 World Junior Summer Showcase for USA Hockey. It will go July 25-August 2 in Minneapolis.
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8. Some jersey number changes to take note of: Trent Frederic will wear #10 this upcoming season. Andrew Mangiapane will don #88. Curtis Lazar will pull on #20. And Issac Howard will suite up in Jeff Skinner's old #53.
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7. The UFA Skinner has signed in San Jose for 1 year at $3m. I liked Skinner and thought his time spent in Edmonton was a classic case of a General Manager (a Jeff Jackson hire, Stan Bowman was not yet on the scene) and Head Coach seeing a player in a very different way.
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6. Oilers goaltender Collin Delia has signed a contract with Brynas IF in Sweden. The 31-year-old was also a UFA. Delia was an o.k. depth guy, fifty-some games of NHL experience and posted a .906 SV% for the Condors last year. But the cold, hard facts are that guys like him are almost always available.
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5. There is surely little surprise that no one in the NHL scores more goals from the right-hand side of the net (between the faceoff circle and the goal line) than Leon Draisaitl. It is confirmed in a brand, new vicinity chart produced by NHL Edge. The player with the same advantage on the opposite size of the zone is Tampa Bay's Brayden Point.
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4. PuckPedia recently did a fascinating calculation of how the newly minted Playoff Cap Hit would have worked in the final game of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Oilers' cap hit would have been $80.6m. The Panthers would have been at $93m. And hey: Florida played by the rules, such as they were. But it will be interesting to see if this changes anything going forward
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3. I have written before how having their farm team located in Bakersfield presented the Oilers with certain challenges. It was magnified as clubs in the same division like Vancouver and Calgary had their AHL teams in Canada. Now, the new CBA all but eliminates 'paper transactions' and forcing demotions to play at least a game before being recalled. If Edmonton's farm team was instead in Red Deer, Saskatoon or right in Edmonton it would level that particular playing field.