Signing Jason Dickinson and Connor Murphy allowed Stan Bowman to cross off a couple of items on his offseason checklist, and considering the list of UFA's in need of signing, getting some business done early probably wasn't the worst idea.

Nobody should confuse that with the heavy lifting being over, though.

There's still plenty of work left, and much of it involves players who became important pieces of the roster over the course of last season.

Colton Dach is due for a new deal. Adam Henrique, Jack Roslovic, Kasperi Kapanen, Connor Ingram, Spencer Stastney, Curtis Lazar and Max Jones are all unrestricted free agents as well. Some names naturally attract more attention than others, but when you put the whole list together, the challenge facing Edmonton becomes much easier to appreciate.

Keeping a team together is expensive.

Especially a good one.

Dach's development has been encouraging enough that the Oilers should view him as part of the future. Roslovic rebuilt his value. Kapanen still belongs. Henrique, well, he had a good run.

Everybody wants more money at the same time.

And unfortunately for Stan Bowman, all of this arrives just as Evan Bouchard's $10.5-million extension kicks in.

Roslovic and Kapanen feel like players who will explore the market, and rightly so. Opportunities to secure bigger contracts don't come around every day, and both veterans have put themselves in a position to take advantage of that. Edmonton would undoubtedly like to keep them around, but there are only so many dollars available, and somebody else may simply offer more.

Nobody in Oil Country wants to hear that.

Fans would rather talk about Connor McDavid taking another discount. Darnell Nurse cap relief remains a popular topic. 

By the time training camp opens, the Edmonton Oilers could very well find themselves icing a weaker roster than the one that walked off the ice in April.

That possibility shouldn't automatically be viewed as a failure.

Vegas has dealt with it. Tampa Bay lived through it. Carolina experienced it after winning the Stanley Cup. Contenders lose players. Role players become expensive. Familiar faces move on.

The challenge for Bowman over the next couple months may not involve making the roster dramatically better.

Standing still would be difficult enough.

And in a salary-cap league, standing still often requires some very good work behind the scenes.

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