{"id":158366,"date":"2025-09-21T03:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T03:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/158366\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T03:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T03:06:11","slug":"savoie-howard-expected-to-inject-oilers-with-youthful-enthusiasm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/158366\/","title":{"rendered":"Savoie, Howard expected to inject Oilers with \u2018youthful enthusiasm\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EDMONTON &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/matt-savoie-8483512\" title=\"Matt Savoie\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Savoie<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/isaac-howard-8483455\" title=\"Isaac Howard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Isaac Howard<\/a> are being expected by the Edmonton Oilers to inject youthful enthusiasm to their veteran lineup this season.<\/p>\n<p>With an otherwise experienced group, it\u2019s welcomed from a team aiming to reach the Stanley Cup Final for a third straight time.<\/p>\n<p>Savoie and Howard should keep things fresh.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought at times last year it was a little stale, and you can have that with older teams that kind of have one eye looking ahead to the playoffs,\u201d Oilers captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/connor-mcdavid-8478402\" title=\"Connor McDavid\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Connor McDavid<\/a> said Thursday. \u201cYou can have some monotonous days, and I felt that last year. Having some new faces and some young blood and playing with new guys can be exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Savoie and Howard are highly touted forwards who will try to make a successful transition from the American Hockey League and NCAA, respectively. They will get an opportunity to make good first impressions when the Oilers open the preseason with split-squad games against the Calgary Flames here at Rogers Place and Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary on Sunday (8 p.m. ET).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt can be a grind getting through 82 games, so I think having some players that haven\u2019t experienced it before is good,\u201d Oilers general manager Stan Bowman said. \u201cThey haven\u2019t played in the NHL, so every building they go to it\u2019s a new experience and they\u2019re just excited to go play a road game in Calgary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think what we\u2019re looking for from them, I think some of that youthful enthusiasm can be contagious to our group.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Savoie, 21, had 54 points (19 goals, 35 assists) in 66 AHL games with Bakersfield and one assist in four games with Edmonton last season.<\/p>\n<p>Howard, 21, had 52 points (26 goals, 26 assists) in 37 games for Michigan State University in 2024-25 and won the Hobey Baker Award as the best player in men\u2019s college hockey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON &#8212; Matt Savoie and Isaac Howard are being expected by the Edmonton Oilers to inject youthful enthusiasm&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-158366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}