Edmonton Oilers re-sign two players on eve of free agency
The Edmonton Oilers are getting some housekeeping done ahead of free agency.
Just a day before the market is set to open, Oilers GM Stan Bowman tied up a few loose ends on a couple of players who are expected to give the team some depth next season. Both Noah Philp and Kasperi Kapanen will be sticking around the Alberta capital, signing a pair of cheap one-year deals to stay in Edmonton.
Philp’s deal carries a cap hit of $775,000 while Kapanen’s deal clocks in with an AAV of $1.3 million.
#Oilers getting a bit of housekeeping done this morning with a couple of depth pieces re-signing on one-year deals:
– Kasperi Kapanen ($1.3 million)
– Noah Philp ($775k)Wonder what this says about Perry and Brown, if anything
— Preston Hodgkinson (@NHLHodgkinson) June 30, 2025
Kapanen has proved to be a worthwhile gamble for the Oilers after having picked him up off waivers last season. The speedy Finn was not a regular in the lineup last season, but had himself a fairly decent playoff run, scoring the series-clinching OT winner against the Vegas Golden Knights.
The next step for Kapanen is to become a fixture on the team’s fourth line and to provide some depth scoring.
Philp coming back isn’t surprising, as the Alberta native impressed with his first NHL look last season. He wasn’t able to stick on the Oilers roster, and that will be the challenge for him going into the new season. There seems to be an opening at the fourth-line centre position ripe for his taking.
The 26-year-old isn’t expected to be a high-impact player, but he does possess the tools to be a dependable bottom-six centre who is responsible at both ends of the ice.
Edmonton still has a few pending UFAs in Connor Brown and Corey Perry, though the clock is ticking, and it seems likely that those two will hit the open market.
These two contracts now leave the Oilers with just over $11 million in cap space to play with in free agency, though a large portion of that will be allotted to an Evan Bouchard extension. There is also a possibility that Edmonton could trade Viktor Arvidsson and Adam Henrique to open up more space.