Edmonton Oilers Make Several Roster Moves, Preparing for Change with Evander Kane

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Ryan Hall
October 8, 2024 (8:52)

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The Edmonton Oilers have made some shrewd moves over the past 24 hours which involves Matt Savoie and Evander Kane to submit their opening day roster.

General manager Stan Bowman along with Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson have been working feverishly to have the Oilers roster submitted prior to their Monday deadline. They made the decision to keep Evander Kane on the active roster as it will ensure they can accrue cap space once Kane goes to long term injury reserve. He currently holds $5.1 million in cap space and by doing this it will allow the Oilers to hold more players until his return.

These roster moves really seem to be salary cap gymnastics to maximize their flexibility at points through the year. It's just a paper transaction, trying to maximize their cap flexibility through the year.

There was much debate on whether he would be on long term injury reserve sooner than later, but the team decided to maximize what they could as the Oilers will be $53 from the cap limit after opening night.

The team also made the decision to have Matthew Savoie recalled from Bakersfield for opening night as this will allow the Oilers to have a performance bonus LITR pool of $1 million. This will give the Oilers more leverage and give them more cap space to work with Savoie as his cap hit will only be $886,666.

Adding all this cap flexibility will help the Oilers sign PTO Travis Dermott as he is expected to sign a league minimum $775,000 contract for one year. He has played well during the preseason and during camp and has outplayed several defensemen including Josh Brown who was put on waivers and clearing $1 million in cap space.

With many new faces any renewed sense that the team will continue where they left off last year many hope that the Oilers will have a good start and put the entire organization on the right footing considering last year's start was downright disastrous.

The Oilers will begin their season at home on Wednesday October 9th against the Winnipeg Jets, Game time will be 10:00 PM eastern.