The Edmonton Oilers signed another European free agent on Monday, bringing in Finnish forward Aku Raty on a one-year, two-way deal worth an AVV of $850,000. Low risk. Maybe something, maybe nothing.
But the Oilers keep doing this now, because well, they have to.
Raty joins a growing list of European free-agent swings by Edmonton. This is a strategy that’s become one of the organization’s primary methods of adding young talent. And the reason is pretty straightforward: they don’t really have draft picks anymore.
That’s the cost of claiming they're only concerned about right now, not five years from now. Picks get moved out for immediate help, prospects get dealt because the window is open now, and nobody in Edmonton is interested in hearing about patience.
But there’s a difference between sacrificing the future and eventually running out of ways to replenish the present.
That’s where these European signings are coming from.
Raty is a 24-year-old, right-shot, coming off a strong season with Kärpät in Finland’s Liiga, where he led the club with 57 points in the 2025-26 season and tied him for seventh in the entire league.
Before returning to Finland, he also spent two years in the AHL, putting up 69 points across 120 games between Tucson and Rockford. There’s enough skill there to justify the bet, especially on a contract with almost no downside.
And to be fair, Edmonton isn’t alone here. Teams across the league are mining Europe more aggressively because mature players in pro leagues can sometimes step into NHL depth roles faster than draft picks. You’re getting older prospects, who are more developed physically, often with pro experience already built in.
But this is a method to compensate for the loss of drafting, not a way of replacing it.
First-round picks aren’t distant futures anymore. Not in today’s NHL. More and more often, players are NHL-ready within a year or two, especially if they’re taken high enough. The Oilers have spent years moving those opportunities away.
And that’s where the criticism around general manager Stan Bowman and the organization starts to set in. Edmonton isn’t just thin on long-term assets five years from now. They’re thin on young, cheap impact players right now.
Some of those players could already be here.
A first-rounder from two drafts ago might already be pushing for NHL minutes. A pick from last year could already be developing in Bakersfield. Instead, Edmonton keeps searching for value externally because internally, there aren’t enough prospects coming.
Now, to be fair again, this is also the reality of competing for a Cup in the McDavid era. Nobody complains about traded picks when a team is making deep playoff runs. Fans wanted aggressive management, and aggressive management usually means futures leaving town.
But there’s a balancing act every contender eventually faces. You can’t just keep spending future picks without finding alternative ways to replace them. That’s why these European signings matter more than they normally would.
The Oilers need them to work.
Not necessarily as stars, but as contributors. Third-line forwards. Penalty killers. Cheap middle-six options. Guys who can outperform their contracts because Edmonton desperately needs value around its expensive core.
That’s the gamble with Raty. At 24, he’s old enough that you probably know what kind of player he is physically, but young enough that there may still be another level offensively. Maybe he becomes NHL depth. Maybe he turns into a useful bottom-six forward with some secondary scoring. Maybe he’s just organizational depth.
But the Oilers are taking these swings because they have fewer traditional ways to find players now.
And that’s the larger conversation here. Is this smart adaptation by a team fully committed to winning now? Or is it the consequence of pushing too many chips into the middle for too long?
Probably both.
The Oilers aren’t rebuilding. They shouldn’t be rebuilding. As long as McDavid and Draisaitl are here, the priority should be maximizing the chance to win. But eventually, those aggressive moves create holes elsewhere in the organization, and those holes need to be filled somehow.
Right now, Edmonton’s answer seems to be Europe.
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