This edition of the Edmonton Oilers needs some magic. The team’s prospect pool will produce Matt Savoie, and the trade for Ike Howard gives the team something close to a plug-and-play winger. The team needs more, something along the lines of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘saviour to rise from these streets’ in the months to come.
I’ve been thinking all summer about the 1980 training camp. The Oilers at that time were loaded with young talent, and would send three fab rookies (Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson and Paul Coffey) straight to the show that October.
Those men, added to the 1979 NHL freshman (Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Kevin Lowe) gave the team an historic heart of the order. The group of youth was so strong, Glen Sather could afford to trade one of my all-time favourites (Risto Siltanen) in an effort to add veteran leadership.
What was so special about the 1980 training camp, aside from Kurri, Anderson and Coffey, were the cuts made by the organization. Among the group headed to the minors that fall were Charlie Huddy and Andy Moog. Those two men would occupy important spots (Huddy was a RH defender who shot left, Moog a starting goaltender) on the Oilers in the future, and in fact both men played during the 1980-81 regular season. Moog was a star in the playoffs, spring 1981.
We can’t point to a possible Huddy or Moog on the Bakersfield Condors roster this fall, but we couldn’t point to Huddy and Moog in September 1980, either.
The Bakersfield team is going to have some impressive resumes, from Samuel Jonsson to Atro Leppänen to Quinn Hutson. I don’t know if any of the men headed for Bakersfield has an NHL future. I do know the Oilers badly need a Huddy and a Moog.
On the Lowdown today, we’ll have Steve Lansky and Tyler Yaremchuk, along with heavy Oilers, Jays, Elks and NFL talk. We’re on noon to 2pm, Sports 1440. I also want to tell you about the YouTube channel that will broadcast the Lowdown beginning on Tuesday. I’m excited for you to see my impressive wardrobe, mostly band t-shirts and such. 🙂 Have a great weekend, hope you can tune in today.
The context behind Connor McDavid’s contract negotiations with the Oilers
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6581646/2025/08/29/connor-mcdavid-oilers-contract-negotiations-context/
I don’t think that the Oilers need more offense. Especially from the back end. What they need are forwards that have NHL scoring ability that also will play the system. The playoffs are a different animal as we saw with Florida not having a great reg season but leading both offense and defense in the playoffs
The team needs to be able to play within their structure and do it with enough energy and intensity. It needs to start at the top. Barkov is a big reason why they can do it. It’s not about hitting more. It’s about countering their hardest opponent effectively. It’s about not letting anything stand in their way antics or refs
Not giving up easy unearned goals, being steady which helps whatever goalie play their best, would make a really big difference to what we saw
You are correct. The Oilers will succeed with physical 2-way forwards. It’s not as important during the regular season, but this will be the recipe for the playoffs.
It’s easy to see why Jeff Skinner failed as an Oiler. We don’t need empty calorie scoring. We need our depth forwards to stifle and check the other team, the way Podkolzin does. I think both Matt Savoie & Andrew Magpie will have success as a 2-way wingers even if the offense doesn’t show.
In retrospect the Oilers should’ve prioritized hanging onto Warren Foegele as he fits the template perfectly.
Why did we have to play the mighty peak Islanders in the 2nd round. We would of beat every other team and gotten stronger as the playoffs went on. I think the Islanders only lost 1 other game besides the 2 games to us. I still remember how bummed everyone was after the Morrow OT ( of all people ) goal Callighen was having such a great playoff.
A Huddy behind the bench wouldn’t hurt either.
I would like to add Jarventie who has a very impressive AHL resume with the only real being the lack of games.
I would suggest that Jarventie and Regula are the two player most likely to see NHL games, with impact, in calendar year 2026.
Perhaps Hutson should be in that group but I take his big NCAA season with trepidation due to age until I see it translate to the AHL to start (I was not that overly impressed in his very short stint last season).
Leppanen is probably the guy with the highest ceiling, I mean, that production in Liiga is massive and, if he can find some structure in the North America game, there is big upside here – I think its more likely that he “doesn’t make it” but, if he does, it could be a big one.
I’m with you on Hutson, I’d be surprised if he gets any NHL games this year
I had a dream that McDavid signed a 1 year contract at league minimum so that the team could spend the savings on trading for a top goalie to try to win the cup, with the understanding he’d make the money back after. It was awesome.
Then I woke up and realized that the spicy taco’s I ate for dinner did bad things to me.
Was Ranford wearing one of those awesome Mexican wrestling masks in the dream?
That would be a way to get Ilya Sorokin on this roster.