Three New Year’s Resolutions For The Oilers In 2025

Out with the old, in with the new.

Every New Year symbolizes the opportunity for a new start, whether it’s making a change in your life or setting a goal you want to accomplish. These New Year’s resolutions are aspirational, but they’re also within your control. If your New Year’s resolution is to win the lottery, you’ll probably end up disappointed. Likewise, a hockey team can’t just resolve to “win the Stanley Cup”. If only it were that easy.

With that in mind, here are three things the Oilers should be to accomplish in 2025.

Find A Solution To The Jeff Skinner Problem

Suffice it to say that the contract Jeff Skinner signed in Edmonton hasn’t worked out for anyone. Signed to be another offensive weapon in the Oilers’ top six, Skinner’s season has been a massive disappointment.

He’s scoring at a less-than-30-point pace, with just 12 points in 36 games. He’s spent most of the past six weeks playing in Edmonton’s bottom six, routinely playing fewer than 12 minutes a night. The low point of his season came when he was a healthy scratch on Sunday in Anaheim.

When an all-offence player like Skinner isn’t scoring, he becomes a headache. He doesn’t fit in the bottom six and doesn’t have head coach Kris Knoblauch’s trust in a scoring role. His no-movement clause only complicates things: he’d have to waive it to be traded anywhere, and the Oilers certainly wouldn’t get much in return.

Whether Skinner finally re-establishes himself in the top six or the Oilers find a way to trade him, one thing is for certain: it can’t go on like this for much longer.

Keep Developing The Kids

The Oilers have long had issues developing young players. They certainly didn’t help themselves last summer when they lost Philip Broberg, Dylan Holloway, and Ryan McLeod.

With holes on the NHL roster and almost no cap space to speak of, the Oilers could really use some help from the kids on the farm. They shouldn’t be too far away now: Noah Philp has already made his NHL debut and looks ready to slide into the bottom six, while Matt Savoie has been on a tear recently in the AHL.

Their continued development, as well as the development of farther away prospects like Beau Akey, Sam O’Reilly, and Connor Clattenburg, will have a huge impact on Edmonton’s ability to contend once they take care of the last item on this list.

Get Connor McDavid Signed To A Long-Term Extension

Most people want to try and save money as part of their New Year’s resolutions. The Edmonton Oilers, meanwhile, head into 2025 hoping to hand out at least one very large cheque.

The Oilers’ first priority this summer will be extending Connor McDavid. It seems all but guaranteed that it’ll get done; he loves it in Edmonton, they just signed his best friend Leon Draisaitl for another eight years, and no NHL player of McDavid’s calibre has ever made it to the open market in the prime of his career.

But it will cost a lot of money. The conversation starts at $15 million per year, with plenty of room to go higher if McDavid wants. He’s still got one more year under contract after this one, but the Oilers will want to get this done as soon as possible.

There are of course more things the Oilers want to accomplish this year: extending Evan Bouchard, winning their first division since the 1980s, and of course, hoisting the Stanley Cup, but this is a good place to start. Hopefully, the Oilers have better luck with their resolutions than most of us.

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