{"id":775841,"date":"2026-07-02T16:41:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/775841\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T16:41:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T16:41:33","slug":"bowman-wagers-on-low-risk-upside-in-busy-start-to-oilers-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/775841\/","title":{"rendered":"Bowman wagers on low-risk upside in busy start to Oilers free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Edmonton Oilers<\/a> general manager Stan Bowman faced questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon, only half of the day\u2019s work was done.By that time, Edmonton had completed a tricky trade shipping Darnell Nurse<\/a> to San Jose with no salary cap retention, after the veteran agreed to expand his trade list. He\u2019d also acquired an intriguing goalie-of-the-future candidate in Devon Levi <\/a>for a 2028 third-round pick from Buffalo and filled the gap on the left side of his blueline by signing Ryan Shea<\/a> for five years at $4 million.<\/p>\n

July 1 was initially shaping up to be a quiet day for the Oilers. But once the Nurse trade went through, Bowman got busy using the $9.25 million in cap space.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the difficult decision here to part ways with a true competitor, lifelong Oiler, tremendous teammate, tremendous member of the community,\u201d said Bowman<\/a> about the trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoyed getting to know Darnell and having him on the team. He\u2019s a class act. Nobody competes harder for his teammates than Darnell, so it\u2019s difficult when things like this happen. So we certainly wish him and his family well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shea, Mukhamadullin<\/p>\n

Shakir Mukhamadullin was the 20th overall pick in the 2020 draft and just the fifth defenceman taken, but his NHL career has been a bumpy road. The 24-year-old is a restricted free agent and needs a contract, but was upended by injury in 2025-26 and played just 50 games. It was his first full season in the league, but he\u2019s capable of playing either side on the blueline, an attractive aspect of his game for Bowman.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just kind of coming into his own right now,\u201d said Bowman on the 6-foot-4 defender. \u201cHe\u2019s got that long reach, he\u2019s a big frame. He\u2019s pretty skinny right now. I think he can probably put on a little bit of weight, but he takes up a lot of space out there. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe liked his game, his penalty kill is something that I think is a strength for him. He\u2019s got a big shot, and he\u2019s got a competitive side to his game, so I think those things add up to being a really useful player for us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ryan Shea burst onto the scene last season with the Pittsburgh Penguins to become a full-time defenceman and seized the opportunity. He averaged 18:53 of ice-time throughout the season and put together strong numbers, with 35 points, while going plus-30.<\/p>\n

As been a calling card in the Bowman era, there\u2019s familiarity with the player. Bowman drafted Shea back in 2015 as a fourth-round pick. Shea never signed in Chicago after four years at Northeastern and has played 186 AHL games lifetime, compared to 150 NHL games in the past three seasons.<\/p>\n

With Mattias Ekholm and Jake Walman also on the left-side, Shea could play more sheltered minutes, or play up in the lineup. Either way, the Oilers hope this was not a flash in the pan season from Shea and that his skill-set will translate to Edmonton.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of the players that we targeted in our meetings leading up to today, hoping that if we were able to get some cap space, we might be able to bring him in,\u201d said Bowman. \u201cI thought he had an excellent season, both offensively and defensively. He\u2019s got really good mobility, he\u2019s got the ability to make plays. His penalty kill was excellent this year, one of the best guys in the league at that this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of options now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A lot of upside\u2019 in Levi<\/p>\n

Bowman said the focus was on defence first, before looking at signing forwards. But the first move of the day was adding a goaltender.<\/p>\n

Devon Levi\u2019s relationship with the Buffalo Sabres seems to have fractured the longer the netminder marinated in the AHL. At one time seen as one of the best goaltending propsects in hockey, Levi had his worst AHL season, but still finished with a .904 save percentage.<\/p>\n

With the Sabres linked to Connor Hellebuyck, and three goaltenders still on the NHL roster, Levi was available. It\u2019s an intriguing wager, as Bowman later paired Levi, with Frederik Andersen and Tristan Jarry to complete the Oilers crease situation.<\/p>\n

Bowman did confirm that Jarry will be back with Edmonton next year during his availability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing was to find a good young goalie that I think has a lot of promise to his game,\u201d said Bowman. \u201cI think he\u2019s probably knocking on the door waiting for that opportunity. So we see a lot of upside in his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe certainly had some really strong seasons. When you\u2019re able to replicate success at that level for multiple years, that\u2019s usually an indicator of someone that\u2019s ready to break through. We saw that with last year, and Brandon Bussi was sort of in the same boat, and now look where he ended up in Carolina at the very end winning the cup. We think that Devon is ready to take a next step and show what he can do at the NHL level.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Oilers have a little over $6.4 million in cap space with 14 forwards, six defencemen, and three goaltenders under contract. That doesn\u2019t RFAs like Colton Dach, Spencer Stastney, or Mukhamadullin.<\/p>\n

Adding a top-six winger might be on the Oilers\u2019 wishlist, but could prove difficult once those RFA contracts are signed, unless another trade is made. Otherwise, few were expecting such an active day, and Bowman got busy.<\/p>\n

Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and co-host of PreGaming and Oilersnation After Dark. He\u2019s also been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years of news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, Menzies collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman faced questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon, only half of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-775841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775841","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=775841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}