Oilers' 2024 Free Agents, Draft Targets, Offseason Guide After NHL Final Loss

Connor McDavid will have to wait at least one more year to lift the Stanley Cup for the first time.

The Edmonton Oilers' first trip to the Stanley Cup Final since 2006 ended after losing a thrilling seven-game series against the Florida Panthers.

Now the Oilers have pressing offseason questions to answer, and little time to answer them before general manager Ken Holland's contract expires June 30.

Here's a few of the major draft and free agency decisions the Oilers will need to make as they prepare to rebuild another Cup-contending core around McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

Restricted free agents: Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg

Unrestricted free agents: Connor Brown, Sam Carrick, Warren Foegele, Sam Gagner, Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark, Corey Perry, Vincent Desharnais, Troy Stecher, Calvin Pickard

Contract information from CapFriendly.

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The Oilers formed their Cup Final team with a bevy of one-year deals and deadline pickups of expiring contracts.

Now the team will need to decide which of those players will be returning to Edmonton next season.

Sam Gagner, a 2007 first-round pick by the Oilers who spent his first seven NHL seasons in Edmonton, returned on a one-year deal this season.

Gagner, who turns 35 in August, told Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman during the Western Conference Finals that he wants to play again next season (h/t OilersNation's Zach Laing.) He was waived by Edmonton in March and played a limited role in the final months of the season, but his league-minimum price might be too affordable for the cap-strapped Oilers to pass on.

Veteran winger Connor Brown and defenseman Troy Stecher similarly finished out their one-year deals with the Oilers. Brown seems like a more likely candidate to re-sign than Stecher, who missed the playoffs after undergoing ankle surgery.

Goaltender Calvin Pickard also just completed a one-year contract. It may have been Stuart Skinner that led Edmonton through the playoffs, but Pickard established himself as a reliable backup while making 23 regular-season appearances in 2023-24, his busiest season since his 2016-17 campaign as a Colorado Avalanche starter.

Adam Henrique is entering free agency for the first time in his career. The Oilers could consider re-signing the veteran forward, acquired in a deadline trade that also sent pending UFA Sam Carrick to Edmonton, due to his reliable presence on the penalty kill and face-off dot.

Fellow midseason pickup Corey Perry is also headed into free agency. The 39-year-old winger, who joined the Oilers after his contract was terminated by the Chicago Blackhawks, could be hoping to eventually return to the Ducks franchise where he spent the first 14 seasons of his career.

Mattias Janmark, who has entered unrestricted free agency in each of the last five seasons, will once again be available after finishing out his second single-year deal with the Oilers. Janmark's biggest asset is that he is a reliable puck-mover on the Oilers' penalty kill, a speciality that could be enough to earn him another spin in Edmonton.

The Oilers had already begun extension talks with pending UFA defenseman Vincent Desharnais before they paused in order to focus on the playoffs, Ryan Rishaug reported for TSN. Desharnais seems a likely candidate to return to Edmonton, as The Fourth Period reported that the 2016 seventh-rounder wants to stick around.

Edmonton will be able to negotiate with a pair of young RFAs in second-year center Dylan Holloway and third-year defenseman Philip Broberg. Both are working on breaking into full-time NHL roles and would be solid, relatively cheap additions to next year's roster.

The Oilers traded away three of their first four picks in the 2024 draft in order to build their Cup Final roster, but the franchise's stockpile of later-round picks could still make this an impactful draft day.

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Oilers 2024 Draft Picks

Round 1: No picks (lost in Sam Carrick trade, 2024)

Round 2: 1 pick

Round 3: No picks (lost in trade for 2022 first-rounder, 2022)

Round 4: No picks (lost in trade for Mattias Ekholm, 2023)

Round 5: 1 pick

Round 6: 2 picks (acquired extra in trade for Mattias Ekholm, 2023)

Round 7: 2 picks (lost one in trade for Brett Kulak, 2022; acquired two in 2024 trades for Troy Stecher and Sam Carrick)

Draft information from PuckPedia.

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Two of the top Oilers prospects from the 2023-24 season, winger Dylan Holloway and defenseman Philip Broberg, seem primed to make a full-time jump to the NHL next season if Edmonton signs the pending RFAs to another deal.

That leaves the Oilers' prospect pool largely bereft of NHL-ready prospects, and fixing that with just one pick in the first four rounds will be a major challenge for Edmonton's front office this July.

The Athletic's Allan Mitchell in March provided some insight as to what the Oilers might be looking for later in the draft.

Mitchell wrote that the Oilers' veteran scouting staff could be influenced by the organization's past acquisitions of Jayden Grubbe (a 2021 fifth-round New York Rangers draft pick traded to the Oilers in 2023) and Max Wanner (a 2021 Oilers seventh-round pick.)

"The two men are developing quickly and in this season's AHL games look closer to being NHL-ready than the more skilled Xavier Bourgault," Mitchell wrote. "Oilers scouts, and the analytics department, might be charged with finding skilled players who play with a rugged edge."

Mitchell named Ethan Procyszyn, a 6-foot-3 OHL center, as a prototype of this kind of player. Procyszyn is projected as a mid-round pick and could be available when the Oilers first come up on the board in the second round.

The Oilers' free-agency decisions will depend on how many of their own pending UFAs are able to stay in Edmonton.

Given the team's goaltending uncertainty throughout the playoffs, as well as Calvin Pickard's contract status, the Oilers are likely to be in the market for a goaltender this offseason.

Former Oilers netminder Cam Talbot will be available after making 52 starts for the Los Angeles Kings this season. Would the Oilers be interested in a reunion with the veteran who was in net for the start of the McDavid era?

Edmonton is sending a series of veteran role-playing forwards into free agency this summer. If some of those outgoing UFAs retire or move on, there are a few similar players who could be available in free agency.

One option could be veteran winger Cal Clutterbuck, who is hitting free agency after 11 straight seasons with the New York Islanders. Clutterbuck is the kind of hard-hitting bottom-six forward with veteran experience that the Oilers prioritized when building their Cup Final roster.

Edmonton's defense was regularly a weakness last season, so the team could also benefit from targeting a free-agent defenseman like Chris Tanev. The former Calgary Flames stalwart would help bolster the Oilers' blue line if available, although the Dallas Stars seem interested in keeping him after acquiring him at the trade deadline.

Many of the Oilers' free agency decisions will depend on whether the team decides to grant general manager Ken Holland a sixth season at the helm. If CEO of hockey ops Jeff Jackson, who was hired in 2023, decides to bring in a new GM for next season, the Oilers could decide to go in a new direction with their roster-building plans.