With a 'cup or bust' mentality and structure present, Oilers team CEO Jeff Jackson has flipped the script of years past and attempted to replenish the down, but not out, Oilers prospect pipeline.
Nearly a year after an introductory press conference preaching innovation and a forward-thinking approach, Edmonton Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson put his money where his mouth is.
And no, we’re not talking about him snagging Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson in free agency, or re-signing nearly all his pending free agents.
We’re talking about how he’s replenished Edmonton’s prospect pipeline.
Now, isn't that the lowest of priorities for a ‘cup or bust’ team? Not in today's salary-cap-driven NHL, where having impact players on entry-level contracts is a huge advantage. Especially when you’ve got two high-priced pillars in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Having served as McDavid’s agent before joining the Oilers, Jackson himself has had a front-row seat to Edmonton continuously parlaying draft picks into deadline additions, while simultaneously failing to draft impact players outside the first round. Two weeks into his interim GM tenure, Jackson wasted no time in re-stocking their prospect cupboard.
On July 5, he acquired Matt Savoie — the No. 9 overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft — from the Buffalo Sabres for Ryan McLeod and Tyler Tullio. Then, on Monday, he cut ties with Edmonton’s 2021 first-round pick, Xavier Bourgault, shipping him and Jake Chiasson to the Ottawa Senators for Roby Jarventie and a fourth-round pick.
Mind you, these weren’t comfortable decisions.
Savoie has dominated the WHL over the last three seasons, tallying 256 points in 161 games. But, concerns about his durability, strength and all-around game reportedly played a role in him being acquired for a seemingly low asking price according to Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic.
Subtracting a proven commodity in McLeod — an elite penalty-killer who won 50.8 percent of his faceoffs last year — isn’t done without pause. But Savoie, who has the wheels to keep up with McDavid, has all the tools to become a legitimate top-six piece. The value of having a top-six winger at an entry-level contract price far outweighs having a solid '3C' in McLeod, who was becoming a luxury they could no longer afford anyway.
While Jarventie has been far more productive in the AHL (86 points in 136 games) than Bourgault (54 points in 117 games), the latter was a recent first-round pick, which teams often are hesitant to give up on too early.
The 21-year-old Finnish native, Jarventie, showed a lot of promise during his injury-riddled 2023-24 campaign, raising eyebrows at training camp, recording 0.90 points per game in 22 AHL outings and suiting up for seven NHL games all while nursing a sore knee.
Giving up on Bourgault so soon surely won't sit well with an amateur scouting staff that was so high on him not too long ago. But, as the former super agent in Jackson knows better than anyone, sometimes you just need a fresh start.
Mind you, Jackson wasn’t hired to make comfortable decisions. He’s a far cry from the revolving door of ‘old-school’ hockey folk who called the shots in Oil Country for far too long.
In several of his media availabilities since joining the Oilers, Jackson has emphasized the importance of player development.
“As an agent, you get to deal with 32 teams and you see what they do in their minor-league systems, you see what they do when they send players back to junior, everybody does things differently,” Jackson told NHL.com back in December. “So you get a wider view of the way people do things and you see the teams that do it really well and then some who you think they can do it better.”
Before Jackson hired Kalle Larsson as the club's senior director of player development in May, the Oilers were one of the NHL’s lone teams without someone in that role. For all the good Ken Holland did for the Oilers, one could argue the way the organization developed Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg — two former first-round picks — was one of the least appealing facets of his tenure.
Both players were prematurely made NHL regulars during the 2022-23 season following small, albeit encouraging, AHL sample sizes and struggled to tread water. After their struggles bled into this past season, the Oilers were forced to re-assign both of them to the AHL at various points.
Unsurprisingly, among other things, Jackson wants the Oilers’ next GM to be someone with a proven track record in player development.
“Someone who's worked in organizations that have had success (and) has had to deal with the interplay between superstars and younger players,” he said.