ANAHEIM — So long, Stastney; hello, Hallander.
“We’ve been interested in his game for a while,” said Bowman. “He played a really offensive style when he was in Sweden. It’s good to see that he’s got that ability to make plays. But in addition, we like the fact that he’s a worker and he competes. He plays at a high pace. I think he’s going to fit in well with the way that Mike wants our players to play.”
We asked around about the player, and if you keep in mind the cost of acquisition — an eighth defenceman — an 11th or 12th forward coming back is likely a fair return.
Hallander will join the team in San Jose Thursday. He is said to be a better-than-decent penalty killer, with average boots and above-average skill. One scout said the more he watched him, the more he liked the player — but there isn’t anything that knocks you over on first viewing.
A Swedish scout called Hallander “a little bit of a heavy skater. But powerful, with decent hands. Quiet kid and very serious.”
Hallander missed most of last season when he was diagnosed in November of 2025 with a blood clot in his leg after being struck by a puck. He rehabbed for 10 months before being cleared to play, and made his comeback this season with Pittsburgh — who originally drafted him in 2018, traded him away in a deal that brought Kasperi Kapanen in from Toronto, and then the Pens brought him back.
Hallander had a goal and three points in his first two games this season with the Penguins before being dealt to Edmonton. Bowman said the blood clot issue has been cured, according to their medical reports.
Edmonton sets up tonight like this:
Podkolzin-McDavid-Draisaitl
Frederic-Dickinson-Kapanen
Samanski/Jones-Dach-Howard
Formenton-Michaels-Joseph
Ekholm-Bouchard
Shea-Murphy
Walman-Emberson
We’ll see who plays the left side on the Dach line, and Bowman was expected to move someone to IR Wednesday afternoon in order to activate Jason Dickinson.
Getting a proper, experienced third-line centreman back into his lineup would make any coach happy, and Mike Babcock is no different.
“He’s a real intelligent, useful player for us,” Babcock said. “When you look at our Top 6, he really gives us a different complexion. We look forward to him getting up and rolling. It’s probably going to take him a bit of time.”
Babcock admitted that his best-laid plans have been changed somewhat by the Oilers’ injury woes. He’ll keep Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the same line in Game 1 of this three-game roadie, even though his plan may have been to split them up on the road, where he does not have the last change.
“Before I started, when I thought we were going to have a full roster, I would have maybe divided them (on the road),” Babcock said. “And you’d say, ‘Well, now you’ve just got even less (to work with).’ Well, we’ve got to have (one line) going real good.”
Babcock’s theory worked to perfection last game against Seattle. Owen Michaels scored once on behalf of the rest of the team, while McDavid and Draisaitl combined for the game-winner late in the third period and an empty-netter.
That’s the model for a bit of a one-line team these days, offensively at least. A goal from the top line, a goal from the rest of the team, and if the power play kicks one in, you’ve got three goals, and that should be enough to win.
Two things did the Oilers in last spring in their six-game, Round 1 loss to the Ducks: Their penalty kill, which went a pathetic 50 per cent against the Ducks, allowing eight power-play goals. And the fact the Oilers could not keep the series from becoming a track meet.
Anaheim was simply too young, too big and too fast for an Oilers team damaged down the middle, with centremen McDavid, Draisaitl, Dickinson, and Adam Henrique all playing injured or not playing at all.
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“Last year was just run-and-gun for both teams. Both teams were scoring a lot,” said Kapanen, Edmonton’s best player in that series. “That’s not the game that we want to get into tonight, so it’s going to be a good test for us to kind of play the way we want to play.”
Everyone in the Oilers dressing room knows that the team Anaheim ran away from in that series did not represent anything close to the Oilers’ best. Whether or not they prove that tonight, or in a playoff series come springtime, remains to be seen.
“This team, when it’s healthy and everybody’s playing, is certainly a different team that it is right now. We’re missing some key players in the lineup,” Kapanen said. “We all know last playoff series wasn’t our best, and we weren’t playing the way we were supposed to.
“Like [McDavid] said, we were expecting the team to kind of just turn it on in the playoffs, and that’s not how that’s not how hockey works. That’s not how sports works in general.”