Oilers should consider bringing Ethan Bear back to Edmonton
The Edmonton Oilers love a good old-fashioned reunion.
On multiple occasions, the team has parted ways with a player only to welcome them back onto the roster after a few years apart. Current Oilers forward Sam Gagner is the ultimate example of a player the team just can’t quit. The 34-year-old is on his THIRD separate stint with the team.
He isn’t the only example. The team also brought back Drake Caggiula this summer, who broke into the league with the team and was subsequently traded to the Philadelphia Flyers. The same could also be said for players like Kyle Brodziak and Ryan Smyth.
So, keeping in mind that there is a precedent, what is stopping the Oilers from bringing back defenceman Ethan Bear?
The 26-year-old was an immensely popular player with the fanbase when he first arrived on the scene in 2017-18. He was drafted 124th overall by the Oilers in 2015 and was able to beat the odds and become a mainstay on the roster for two full seasons, spending a lot of his time as a top-four defenceman for the club.
Ultimately, Oilers GM Ken Holland decided that a rough showing in the 2021 playoffs was enough for him and decided to trade Bear to the Carolina Hurricanes that summer in exchange for Warren Foegele, who is still on the Edmonton roster.
In Carolina, Bear struggled to gain the trust of head coach Rod Brind’Amour and the Hurricanes eventually split with him after just a single season, trading him to the Vancouver Canucks.
This is where things started to get interesting for the Saskatchewan native. Bear played heavy minutes on the Canucks’ top pair with Quinn Hughes and had very good results. According to Natural Stat Trick, the duo played 364:30 together and controlled play with a 61.76 goals-for percentage (GF%) and a 56.70 scoring-chances-for percentage (SCF%).
These results should have parlayed into an extension with the Canucks, but Bear’s shoulder injury sustained at the 2023 IIHF World Championship threw everything into disarray.
Back in June, it was announced that Bear would be out for at least six months after undergoing shoulder surgery. As a result, the Canucks opted not to qualify him and Bear has been getting paid through insurance since.
Now, five months later, it sounds like teams are starting to inquire about Bear’s availability.
The Oilers should definitely be among the teams kicking the tires. One of Edmonton’s main weaknesses this year, outside of goaltending, has been defence.
Specifically, the team has not been getting enough from the right side of its defensive group, which consists of Cody Ceci, Evan Bouchard, and Vincent Desharnais.
Bringing in Bear could help the team restructure its defence in a way that helps get things back on track. Depending on his health, Bear could potentially step right onto the roster and serve as a partner to Darnell Nurse in the team’s top four, a similar role that he had with Vancouver.
Both Nurse and Bear have played as a pair in the past. In fact, from 2018-19 to 2020-21, the two played a whopping 1,410:27 together at five-on-five. During that time, the pair didn’t quite hit the highs of the Hughes-Bear pairing, but they did control the majority of chances while on the ice with a 54.50 high-danger chances-for percentage (HDCF%).
This would allow the team to then utilize Desharnais as the seventh defender and move Ceci down to the third pairing to establish a steady veteran pair with Brett Kulak.
There is a bit of risk associated with signing Bear. He is coming off some major surgery and might not be firing on all cylinders right off the bat. However, he would also represent one of the cheaper options currently available that could help the defence.
The familiarity and the need for what Bear provides is there for the Oilers. It will require no assets to bring him onto the team, and it would allow head coach Kris Knoblauch another piece to help figure out the puzzle that is Edmonton’s defensive group.
If Holland doesn’t at least give a phone call to Bear’s agent, then he isn’t doing his job.