Oilers’ 2024 Free Agents, Draft Targets, Offseason Guide After NHL Final Loss

Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images

Restricted free agents: Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg

Unrestricted free agents: Connor Brown, Sam Carrick, Warren Foegele, Sam Gagner, Adam Henrique, Mattias Janmark, Corey Perry, Vincent Desharnais, Troy Stecher, Calvin Pickard

The Oilers formed their Cup Final team with a bevy of one-year deals and deadline pickups of expiring contracts.

Now the team will need to decide which of those players will be returning to Edmonton next season.

Sam Gagner, a 2007 first-round pick by the Oilers who spent his first seven NHL seasons in Edmonton, returned on a one-year deal this season.

Gagner, who turns 35 in August, told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman during the Western Conference Finals that he wants to play again next season (h/t OilersNation’s Zach Laing.) He was waived by Edmonton in March and played a limited role in the final months of the season, but his league-minimum price might be too affordable for the cap-strapped Oilers to pass on.

Veteran winger Connor Brown and defenseman Troy Stecher similarly finished out their one-year deals with the Oilers. Brown seems like a more likely candidate to re-sign than Stecher, who missed the playoffs after undergoing ankle surgery.

Goaltender Calvin Pickard also just completed a one-year contract. It may have been Stuart Skinner that led Edmonton through the playoffs, but Pickard established himself as a reliable backup while making 23 regular-season appearances in 2023-24, his busiest season since his 2016-17 campaign as a Colorado Avalanche starter.

Adam Henrique is entering free agency for the first time in his career. The Oilers could consider re-signing the veteran forward, acquired in a deadline trade that also sent pending UFA Sam Carrick to Edmonton, due to his reliable presence on the penalty kill and face-off dot.

Fellow midseason pickup Corey Perry is also headed into free agency. The 39-year-old winger, who joined the Oilers after his contract was terminated by the Chicago Blackhawks, could be hoping to eventually return to the Ducks franchise where he spent the first 14 seasons of his career.

Mattias Janmark, who has entered unrestricted free agency in each of the last five seasons, will once again be available after finishing out his second single-year deal with the Oilers. Janmark’s biggest asset is that he is a reliable puck-mover on the Oilers’ penalty kill, a speciality that could be enough to earn him another spin in Edmonton.

The Oilers had already begun extension talks with pending UFA defenseman Vincent Desharnais before they paused in order to focus on the playoffs, Ryan Rishaug reported for TSN. Desharnais seems a likely candidate to return to Edmonton, as The Fourth Period reported that the 2016 seventh-rounder wants to stick around.

Edmonton will be able to negotiate with a pair of young RFAs in second-year center Dylan Holloway and third-year defenseman Philip Broberg. Both are working on breaking into full-time NHL roles and would be solid, relatively cheap additions to next year’s roster.