You will not find Stan Bowman’s name on any major list of NHL July 1 free agent frenzy winners.
Bowman had limited cap space to work with. He cleared out Viktor Arvidsson and Evander Kane’s contracts and said good-bye to Corey Perry, Connor Brown, Jeff Skinner and John Klingberg in large part to pay for $6.6 million and $5.5 million million per year raises for Evan Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl respectively.
The cap shot up, which helped pay for new deals for free agent Andrew Mangiapane and prospective free agent Trent Frederic.
One test of an NHL GM is to use cap space wisely on July 1, something interim GM Jeff Jackson failed to do last season. Bowman did it this year but that’s an easier test to pass when your cap space is limited, as Bowman faced this year in Edmonton. Nonetheless, he made what looks to be two solid bets on two solid forwards, Mangiapane and Frederic, as well as a great cheap bet on energy forward Curtis Lazar.
For all this, however, Bowman has now been labelled a “loser,” by many a hockey commentator on their annual Free Agent Frenzy winner and loser lists.
Here’s what former NHL goalie Martin Biron had to say at TSN. “They did not address their goaltending. So there’s a lot of question marks. Is the Edmonton Oilers a better team now? They’re not. They’re not a better team now than they were when the season ended. They’re not a better team now that they were at the start of the season when they didn’t even have Evander Kane healthy like they did in the playoffs. So, I’m looking at the Oilers and I’m saying this is disappointing.”
At the Athletic, VGK writer Jesse Granger also put the Oilers in the “loser” category when it came to the NHL’s goalie carousel. “The Oilers shocked many by standing pat in the crease – at least for now. Edmonton still has Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard under contract for one more season, and GM Stan Bowman chose not to add a goalie on Tuesday. In Bowman’s defense, it’s not as if there was a bounty of options available to upgrade his goaltending. Still, he passed on John Gibson, who Anaheim traded to Detroit for Petr Mrazek and two draft picks. He also passed on signing one of the veteran backups on the open market.”
At the Daily Faceoff, writer Matt Larkin also has the Oilers as overall losers: “The Oilers got two big swings at the Stanley Cup and missed. Now Leon Draisaitl’s and Evan Bouchard’s new deals kick in at a combined $24.5 million, and voila, you’ve squeezed Corey Perry, Connor Brown, Evander Kane, Arvidsson and John Klingberg from your roster while adding nothing on July 1. It’s not an utter catastrophe given the Oilers’ top-end stars remain aboard, but when your depth gets decimated and you don’t address your goaltending problem…we have to call it like it is and say the Oilers are a significantly weaker team now than they were even two weeks ago.”
At The Athletic, writer Shayna Goldman also said that teams (like Edmonton) looking for a goalie ended up as losers. “The goalie market was incredibly weak this year. ”
And at Bleacher Report, writer Lyle Fitzsimmons also pegged the Oilers as NHL free agency losers. “(Bowman) did prompt some league-wide head scratching by signing middle-six forward Trent Frederic for eight years at $3.85 million annually, but it hardly seems the kind of move that’ll convince Connor McDavid, who’s entering the last year of his deal, to stick around.”
And at The Hockey News, writer Adam Proteau also had the Oilers as losers: “Despite nearly winning a Cup this past season, the Oilers weren’t able to persuade key role players to re-sign with the team… At best, the Oilers are approximately the same in terms of all-around talent, and that may not be good enough to keep Pacific Division and Western Conference teams at bay next year. That makes them a loser on our list.”
The same went for Ryan Dixon at Sportsnet: “A lot of valuable depth — from Corey Perry to Connor Brown to John Klingberg — went out the door and any notion the Oilers could do something to upgrade the crease was killed by a grim goalie market that became completely barren once Jake Allen re-upped in New Jersey.”
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