Prospect System Ranking – 28th
The Oilers have emerged as Stanley Cup threat built around a constellation of stars, including the game's best player, Connor McDavid. After years of drafting frustration, including multiple first overall picks, Ken Holland took the reins as GM in time for the 2019 NHL Draft. After making the playoffs once in 13 years, they have made the playoffs every year since, including going to the conference finals last season. They have retained all of the first-round draft picks in his time, excluding this season, and have graduated four promising prospects. Evan Bouchard (2108 – 8th – drafted just prior to his arrival has emerged as a star following the trade of Tyson Barrie to Nashville for Mattias Ekholm. Philip Broberg drafted 8th in 2019 along with Dylan Holloway, drafted 20th in 2020 debuted in limited ice time last season.
Player graduations are a healthy sign for an organization in a salary cap era if all players continue to progress. They are also responsible for the group ranking falling from 19th to 28th. Raphael Lavoie looks the most promising to emerge from the current group of prospects for the coming season. Holland has also been active on the trade front recently, adding pieces to win a championship. You can expect him to continue to move future assets for help immediately. They only have their second-round pick in the first four rounds, so prospects and future picks are likely in play for the foreseeable future.
1. Xavier Bourgault
Bourgault surely learned a lot from his four years in Shawinigan, helping them pivot from being one of the worst teams in the QMJHL all the way to winning a league championship and appearing in the Memorial Cup. And while the "Q" has run into trouble lately with their top producers making the jump to the pros, that doesn't appear to be the case with him, emerging immediately as one of the best players on the Condors. None of his physical tools truly grade out as elite, but how he sees the ice and how well he stays composed under pressure are both high-end attributes. He's consistent and reliable, but also able to elevate his game at big moments, and those types of players usually go on to have long, successful careers thanks to the trust they earn from coaches.
2. Patrik Puistola
Puistola has now dressed in more than 200 games in Finland's top pro league and just led his Jukurit Mikkeli team in points, so it's fair to say that the 22-year-old should be ready to sign his entry-level contract and make the jump to North America. Newly acquired by Edmonton from Carolina in exchange for Jesse Puljujärvi, he might even be able to skip the AHL and head straight the Oilers, so maybe the possibility of playing on the same team as Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl will make the move easier. He's very smooth and fluid with both his skating and puck control, being able to move around the ice and stay in the play with minimal energy exerted. He's still quite scrawny, though, so bulking up will be a big priority if he is to succeed on the smaller ice.
3. Raphael Lavoie
Lavoie was a frustrating player to scout at times because his effectiveness wavered a lot from game to game, or even shift to shift, but the Oilers still selected him relatively high because he had such an enticing collection of tools. However, development is a marathon not a sprint, and Lavoie has really started to blossom in the years since. Getting to play most of a full season in Sweden at the height of the pandemic not only kept his development on track, but it actually might also have given him a perfect bridge between the QMJHL and the AHL. He can play both a power game and a skill game and can single-handedly break through defenses in the cycle or on the rush. When he gets all the cylinders firing at once he is such a handful for opposing defenders. He led Bakersfield in goals this season, which shows how close he already is to getting into the NHL.
4. Carter Savoie
Savoie is one of the most interesting case studies active among all NHL prospects. Look solely at his incredible scoring numbers from the AJHL and NCAA and he seems like an elite talent. However, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before he will be able to cut it in the NHL, as evidenced by the steep drop-off in his numbers since hitting the AHL. The good in his game? There are few prospects in the world more dangerous with the puck in the offensive zone, able to snipe goals with ease and find passing lanes that others cannot. The bad? His skating and pacing are atrocious, and his off-puck contributions are practically nonexistent. There just aren't any players in the NHL right now who play like he does. Can he blaze an entirely new trail, or will he need to make serious tweaks to his game in order to make it?
5. Matvey Petrov
Petrov has turned out to be a major hidden gem for the Oilers as a 6th-round draft pick and has played a pivotal role in helping turn North Bay around from one of the worst teams in the OHL to one of the league's very best. He was recently voted by a poll of OHL coaches as one of the best playmakers in the league, and it's easy to understand why, as his passes are hard, crisp, and he can find the narrowest of lanes. He's not especially big or strong but can protect pucks well with his hands and reach. He's also a stellar shooter, as evidenced by his 40 goals last season, but he has elected to play more deferentially this year. Petrov is arguably one of the most underrated prospects in all of junior hockey, though that is unlikely to persist for much longer.
6. Tyler Tullio
Tullio was one of only a handful of top Ontario-based prospects to find a play to place during 2021-21, heading to Slovakia while the entire OHL season was cancelled. Those 19 games might not have seemed like much, but they were probably invaluable for him in his attempt to keep his game polished and improving, as he put forth a monstrous performance in his final year with Oshawa. For a former 5th-round pick his first season in the AHL was relatively solid, scoring at a decent clip and looking right at home against the competition. He's small but feisty and combative and can find different ways to make his team better, bringing energy and grit during the times where he isn't contributing as much on the score sheet. He can play up or down a lineup, which significantly increase his odds of finding a long-term NHL gig.
7. Nikita Yevseyev
Russia's VHL, a league above the under-20 MHL but below the highly talented KHL, can be a sneaky good environment for prospects to develop in. Yevseyev played most of his draft season there as a member of the established Kazan organization, and while he didn't draw a lot of fanfare to himself, he did nevertheless put in a lot of work on his game. It should come as little surprise, then, that he jumped up a level this past season. What is more of a shocker, though, is that he was arguably the best junior-aged defenseman in the entire KHL. His game is mostly built around his skating, with strong edges, long strides and a lot of power generation, and he already knows how to use his mobility to stick to professional opponents and disrupt their offensive intentions. It's incredibly early, but Yevseyev is currently looking like one of the shrewdest picks of the 2022 draft.
8. Olivier Rodrigue
Stuart Skinner has emerged as both Edmonton's goalie of the present and of their future, but Rodrigue is probably going to be given a few more years’ worth of opportunities to prove that he could at least become a backup for the Oilers. He's not a particularly big goaltender, but he is fast and flexible, and that can still be a workable formula for success even though the margin for error is narrower. The sudden emergence of COVID-19 in early 2020 robbed him of what was shaping up to be a QMJHL championship run in Moncton, and the two proceeding years of pandemic-influenced hockey were harder on netminders than players at any other position. He did, however, bounce back quite nicely this season in Bakersfield.
9. Luca Munzenberger
The Oilers really went off the board when they selected Münzenberger within the first 100 picks of the 2021 draft. So far, that gambled has really not paid off for them. The German junior hockey system can be really hit or miss for developing prospects, and despite coming over to North America to advance his game in a different environment, the University of Vermont program that he joined isn't exactly that much better. On the plus side, the defender has a lot of size and natural athleticism to work with, and he is getting the opportunity to play a lot of minutes on his club, so there is a foundation being built right now that could potentially lead to success somewhere down the road. If he can get in some reps with the German national team at the World Championships that could provide a beneficial boost.
10. Jake Chiasson
Chiasson hasn't quite lived up to the expectations of his draft placement, but still received his entry-level contract from the Oilers because they believe he still has a lot more left to offer. In his defense he did miss the majority of his 2021-22 season due to injury, and then started this year on a weaker Brandon team before being traded to a Saskatoon club that played much differently. While he flashed some intriguing power forward elements in his draft season those largely haven't panned out since then. Interestingly, though, his off-puck play did start to look better once he joined the stingy and structured Blades, utilizing his athleticism and speed. Maybe he'll have a more likely path to the NHL by focusing on being a checking winger and penalty killer. One more season in junior before turning pro would be the best thing for his long-term growth.
