Heading into the 2025-26 season, it’s safe to say most observers believe the biggest issue for the Edmonton Oilers is going to be their goaltending.

Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard indeed got Edmonton within two wins of a Stanley Cup championship last season, but Oilers doubters will point to Skinner and Pickard’s individual playoff numbers. Skinner had a .889 save percentage, while Pickard’s SP was .886, evidence that Edmonton had sufficient reason to make a change between the pipes this summer.

However, the Oilers have doubled down on the Skinner/Pickard tandem, choosing instead to spend their remaining salary cap space on forward Jack Roslovic this week. The 28-year-old signed a one-year contract at a salary of $1.5 million, giving Edmonton more depth up front, but look again at the above paragraph and tell us why the Oilers chose to beef up a position they were already strong at rather than address their biggest need.

Now, don’t get it twisted, we’re not for a moment suggesting it was going to be easy for the Oilers to acquire a difference-maker in net in the off-season. We understand that the acquisition of Connor Ingram may turn out to be the right move for Edmonton sometime soon. But that $1.5 million in cap space they spent on Roslovic, in addition to their remaining cap space, would give the Oilers $1.8 million in cap space as the season begins to unfold.

That amount of cap space would’ve turned into more than $8 million in space by this year’s NHL trade deadline. That would’ve landed Edmonton a true needle-mover, and with respect to Roslovic, he’s not proven himself to be that type of player.

We have no problem acknowledging Roslovic had a solid 2024-25 season as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes. He posted 22 goals, matching his career high from 2021-22, and his points total of 39 was the third time in four seasons he had a points total at least that high. But oddly enough, Roslovic’s assist totals have underwhelmed in recent years; this past season, he generated only 17 assists – a nearly 50 percent drop from his career-high of 33 assists, which he achieved in 2022-23 with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

You can see, then, why NHL GMs weren’t jumping out of their seat to offer Roslovic a contract with plenty of term. He has to demonstrate he’s a 20-goal-scorer year-in and year-out for a couple of consecutive seasons if he’s going to persuade a team to give him the longevity and, yes, the dollar amount Roslovic is looking for.

He’s now going to be auditioning all season long for a multi-year contract, and while that could be the motivation Roslovic needs to create a better contract for himself in the next handful of years, we’re going to stick with our opinion that Edmonton could’ve hung onto its cap space and used it to address issues that arise during the season.

We’re not here to dump all over Roslovic. On a different team, he might be a more crucial player and one worth much more money than he’s playing for this season. But this is the second consecutive season Roslovic’s salary has dropped, and he’s surely not looking to continue that trend. Stranger things have happened than Roslovic thriving with the Oilers, but there’s a nagging feeling that Edmonton is spending to the cap ceiling for the sake of spending to it.

Sometimes, it’s worth it to show discipline with your cap space and see what happens once the season unfolds for a bit before you focus on areas of need. We just don’t believe the Oilers, a top-10 team in the league in goals-for per game last season, needed to add another forward when the team was still putting together a new identity this season.

GM Stan Bowman could’ve waited a couple of months to figure things out, as that’s what Colorado Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland did last season, trading for goalies Scott Wedgewood at the end of November, then dealing for Mackenzie Blackwood in early December. Those were crucial moves for the Avs, but neither would’ve happened if MacFarland had spent to the cap ceiling rather than waited for the right fix for his team.

Indeed, Colorado’s cap flexibility allowed it to go out and bring in solutions for what was ailing the Avs. That could’ve been the type of deal available to Bowman if he had held off on this signing. He’s instead got Roslovic, and while that's not in and of itself a bad thing, there’s a case to be made that exhibiting some patience with its roster would’ve better served the Oilers than adding a bit more firepower when that’s never been the problem in Edmonton.

Edmonton Oilers Solidify The Core With A Week Of Signings The Edmonton Oilers are very active this week, signing contracts left and right.

Time will tell if Bowman was smarter to pick up Roslovic at such a small dollar amount, or whether the Oilers should’ve held off a while longer and pinpointed their problems as the season evolved. We’re clearly of the opinion that patience would’ve been a virtue here, and Edmonton should’ve kept their cap space until a true team need became apparent.

It’s great to feel like you’ve got another capable hand on your team. But there’s a reason Roslovic is on his fifth NHL team. It’s not that he’s not capable of giving you 20 goals and 40 points, it’s that all teams have decided, for one reason or another, that he’s expendable. The Oilers could’ve shown more discipline and waited a month or two until they realized what their strengths and weaknesses really were.

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