The former Sens winger returns to the NHL on a one-year, $850,000 contract with the Edmonton Oilers.
Former Ottawa Senators winger Alex Formenton is getting another NHL shot.
The Edmonton Oilers announced on Wednesday they’ve signed the 26-year-old winger to a one-year, $850,000 contract.
From a hockey perspective, it's easy to understand Edmonton’s interest.
He's not quite as fast as his new teammate, Connor McDavid, but Formenton is probably just about as fast as anyone else in the game. He also scored 18 goals and 32 points in his last NHL season, and thanks to that speed, five of those goals came shorthanded.
So, at close to the league minimum, without surrendering an asset, the Oilers are adding a player who's blazing-fast and excellent on the penalty kill.
But this isn't your average reclamation project, and the Oilers aren't your average organization when it comes to second chances.
Formenton was one of five players from Canada’s 2018 World Junior team charged with sexual assault after a Hockey Canada event in London, Ont., in June 2018. After a long trial, all five were acquitted in July 2025, with the judge explicitly stating that she did not find the evidence and testimony of the complainant to be "either credible or reliable."
The NHL cleared all five players to resume their careers following a period of ineligibility, but Hockey Canada recently upheld their suspension of four of them. Formenton was reinstated immediately last month.
Of the five, only Carter Hart has reclaimed NHL success so far, catching on with the Vegas Golden Knights and back-stopping them to this year’s Stanley Cup Final.
Formenton, on the other hand, returned to play for HC Ambri-Piotta in Switzerland, where he recorded 13 goals and 23 points in 42 games last season. He returned to Europe because his NHL future in Ottawa had already been decided.
At the opening of Senators' training camp last September, GM Steve Staios said he had spoken with Formenton’s agent and that both sides agreed a fresh start elsewhere would be best. It's believed that Staios explored the possibility of trading his rights, but nothing panned out.
The Senators finally removed Formenton from their free-agent list a week after their season ended, relinquishing his rights and making him an unrestricted free agent.
Formenton last appeared for the Sens in 2021-22. The former second-round pick finished his time here with 39 points in 109 games. His speed made him one of the organization’s most intriguing young players, but more than four years have now passed since he played here.
Edmonton presents a logical hockey fit. Oilers associate coach D.J. Smith was running the Sens' bench during Formenton’s best NHL season and knows firsthand what his speed, forecheck, and penalty-killing can add.
But there will be plenty of dialogue about this signing from a non-hockey perspective. This isn't the first time the Oilers have offered up a second chance that they knew they would probably be criticized for.
The Oilers hired Stan Bowman as general manager in 2024 after he had been ruled ineligible to work in the NHL for nearly three years. An independent investigation found that Bowman and other Chicago Blackhawks executives failed to respond adequately after learning of allegations that video coach Brad Aldrich had sexually assaulted prospect Kyle Beach in 2010.
This summer, Bowman hired Mike Babcock as Edmonton’s head coach. Babcock’s hiring is more than a second chance because his career has included public accounts of humiliating treatment of former players at more than one NHL stop. That includes a short-lived tenure in Columbus that ended with his resignation before he coached a game.
Before Edmonton hired Babcock, the NHL conducted another review and concluded there was no basis to restrict his employment.
But the court of public opinion is different. In that arena, being cleared is rarely the same as universal public forgiveness.
Despite the green light from the league, no other NHL team opted to sign Formenton. But for the Oilers, this wasn't uncharted territory. They've been in this boat before, and history has probably made them feel like they can weather this kind of storm.
So they decided, once again, to lean into their reputation as the league’s most prominent destination for second chances.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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