7 wild-card players who could have big seasons with Edmonton Oilers
The Edmonton Oilers will be a much different-looking team heading into the new season.
This is a team that has seemed to shy away from taking risky bets over the last few seasons. Just about every player on the last two Stanley Cup Final runs has been, more or less, proven NHL talent. The Oilers have recently been focused on finding as much veteran talent as possible… until now.
Oilers GM Stan Bowman has embarked on a new strategy to build his roster. He’s added more youth to the ranks through a combination of trades and signings. Bowman has also enticed a few high-octane overseas free agents to come to the Alberta capital.
The 2025-26 Oilers will have a lot more wild cards than fans are used to, and depending on how they pan out, it could be the difference between making it to the Stanley Cup Final for a third-straight season.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at seven of those players:
1. Stuart Skinner (G)
Age: 26
2024/25 stats (NHL): 26-18-4, 896 SV%, -1.5 GSAx
Current contract: $2.6 million cap hit (UFA-2026)
Unlike just about everybody else on this list, Stuart Skinner is very well-known to Oilers fans… but his consistency issues will make him a wild card this season.
Despite enormous pressure to make a change to their goaltending, Edmonton appears to be running back Skinner as the presumptive starter in 2025-26. It’s a controversial decision given that the Edmonton native has struggled to put together a complete season and lost the net for a significant portion of the playoffs.
When he’s hot, he looks like a Vezina-calibre goalie, but when he’s cold, he looks like he shouldn’t be in the league.
2. David Tomášek (RW/C)
Age: 29
2024/25 stats (SHL): 24 G, 33 A, 57 PTS, 47 GP
Current contract: $1.2 million cap hit (UFA-2026)
David Tomášek lit up the SHL last season, finishing atop the league in points, and the Oilers noticed.
Not only did Bowman bring the Czech forward to the NHL, but he signed him to a cap hit of over a million bucks. That’s a sign that the Oilers trust him to jump straight into the NHL and take a spot on the opening day lineup.
A spot in the top nine seems likely for Tomášek to start, but whether or not he can translate that scoring touch into the NHL remains to be seen.
3. Matt Savoie (C/RW)
Age:Â 21
2024/25 stats (AHL):Â 19 G, 35 A, 54 PTS, 66 GP
Current contract: $886,666 cap hit (RFA-2027)
Oilers fans got a brief glimpse of what Matt Savoie can bring in a short four-game stint last season, but he’s expected to get a much bigger opportunity this time around.
It was an overall successful first pro season for the 21-year-old Savoie. He finished fifth in AHL rookie scoring and second on the Bakersfield Condors behind only veteran Seth Griffith. In that short stint, he showed a surprising amount of tenacity along the boards and seemed to develop some chemistry next to Leon Draisaitl.
Can he take that next step into developing into a useful top-six forward?
4. Ike Howard (LW)
Age:Â 21
2024/25 stats (NCAA):Â 26 G, 26 A, 52 PTS, 37 GP
Current contract: $950,000 (RFA-2028)
You can’t call Matt Savoie a wild card without doing the same for Ike Howard.
These two have garnered the biggest storylines this summer when it comes to the Oilers’ youth movement, but the hype around Howard is considerably bigger.
The Wisconsin native is coming off a Hobey Baker-winning season with Michigan State and is a much more dynamic offensive talent. He’s shown to have a blistering shot that gives goalies fits and a knack for finding the right spot on the ice to finish plays.
Howard has all the talent in the world, but bringing that to the NHL will be much easier said than done.
5. Joshua Samanski (C/LW)
Age:Â 23
2024/25 stats (DEL): 14 G, 26 A, 40 PTS, 52 GP
Current contract: $975,000 cap hit (RFA-2027)
Joshua Samanski is the third member of the team’s youth movement heading into the new season, but he has mostly flown under the radar this season.
Signed back in March, not much is known about Samanski’s game, but he has some big fans back in his native Germany. It feels unlikely that he will make the team out of camp with guys like Savoie and Howard to compete with, but a good training camp could change that.
He’s a dark-horse candidate to make the team, and we shouldn’t be surprised if he appears in at least a handful of NHL games this year.
6. Atro Leppänen (LD)
Age:Â 26
2024/25 stats (SM-Liiga): 21 G, 42 A, 63 PTS, 60 GP
Current contract:Â $975,000 (UFA-2026)
Another overseas acquisition that has not had a lot of talk from fans is Atro Leppänen.
The Finnish defender made history in the SM-Liiga last season, putting up the highest-ever single-season point total from a defenceman. Leppänen beat the previous record by 10 points as he finished atop the league in overall points, beating out every forward as well.
Those are some seriously crooked numbers for the 26-year-old, and if he can bring a fraction of that offensive ability to the NHL, the Oilers might have landed a player here. Still, he has some work to do in training camp as he will have to leap several players.
7. Alec Regula (RD)
Age:Â 25
2024/25 stats: DNP (injured)
Current contract: $775,000 cap hit (RFA-2027)
Perhaps the biggest wild card on this list is that of Alec Regula, who missed all of last season with a knee injury.
Despite the concerns, the Oilers picked him up off waivers midway through last season and inked him to a two-year contract. He is expected to be healthy for this upcoming season, but will need an excellent camp to make it onto the NHL team to start the year.
Regula has never had an NHL season with more than 15 games, and has played almost exclusively in the AHL since 2022-23. Edmonton likes something about him, but he hasn’t shown much in his career to date.