The Edmonton Oilers gave contracts to several players before the 2025-26 season kicked off.
The biggest deal was for Connor McDavid, who signed a two-year contract worth $12.5 million, which is the same amount he made each year in his last deal. This deal gave the Oilers a clear timeline for their chance to compete.
With the extra funds, the Oilers signed Mattias Ekholm to a three-year contract just two days after McDavid’s new deal. On the same day as McDavid’s signing, they also gave Jake Walman a seven-year contract that comes with a cap hit of $7 million. The big question is, was it too soon to sign Walman?
Here’s a quick overview of Walman’s journey before he joined the Oilers. He didn’t get noticed early, being drafted in 2014 but not playing in the NHL until the 2019-20 season. He became a regular player with the Detroit Red Wings in 2022-23 after they traded for him just before the 2022 deadline. During his two complete seasons there, Walman hit new personal records with the historic team.
In the 2023-24 season, he scored 12 goals and earned 21 points in 63 games, although he was out for a while towards the end. That summer, the Red Wings added a second-round draft pick to his name to make space in their budget and traded him to the Sharks. With the Sharks struggling in the 2024-25 season, Walman took advantage of more playing time, scoring six goals and achieving 32 points in just 50 games.
Before the 2025 trade deadline, the Oilers showed interest in him. They offered a first-round pick in 2026 and an older player, Carl Berglund, who spent the 2025-26 season in Czechia. As for Walman, he completed that season with one goal and eight points in 15 games, playing in a second-pairing role, especially after Mattias Ekholm got hurt.
He stood out during the 2025 playoffs, scoring two goals and getting 10 points in 22 games, which was pretty much his first big chance in the NHL playoffs, aside from one game with the Blues in 2021. To sum it up, Walman played like a top defender who earns $7 million a year after being traded.
However, the 2025-26 regular season was different. He started the season on the injured list but managed to score eight goals and earn 20 points in 53 games, which is decent for a player who was switching between the second and third pairings on defense. Walman’s overall statistics raised some concerns since the Oilers had only 40.9 percent of the goal share and 46.02 percent of the expected goal share when he was on the ice during even-strength play. Additionally, the Oilers faced more shots against them and allowed many more dangerous scoring chances than they created.
I’ve been a big fan of Walman since his Red Wings days, but I can see that the Oilers may have made a quick decision with his contract extension. Still, there are a few reasons that make me hopeful this signing won’t turn out as badly as it looks.
To begin with, I believe it’s pretty clear that Walman was the best defenseman for the Oilers during their six games against the Ducks. When Walman was on the ice for five-on-five situations, the Oilers scored over half of the goals at 54.55 percent, and his expected goal share was 50.9 percent. Even though they allowed more chances for the other team to score, they did create one extra chance that was more likely to lead to a goal, all while taking more shots than their opponents.
Walman earned four points, which was the second-highest among all Oilers’ defensemen in those six games, making two main assists and two secondary assists. The only defenseman with more points was Evan Bouchard, but Bouchard got four of his seven points during power plays.
Walman wasn’t flawless, as he led the team with eight penalty minutes. For some strange reason, they were able to successfully defend against the four penalties he received, which made up half of their total eight successful kills. It’s a bit confusing, but it’s also kind of funny.
Two other things that bring some hope are that he was hurt for a lot of the season and he played on the opposite side. Let’s talk about the second point first. Walman usually played on the right side when he was paired with Darnell Nurse on the second line. Over the regular season, he was on the ice for nearly 1,000 minutes during five-on-five play, and 416 of those minutes were with Nurse. The results were pretty much what we expected, as the Oilers managed 40.82 percent of the goal share and 41.48 percent of the expected goal share when both were playing together in five-on-five situations.
When Walman played with any other defense partner, the Oilers spent a little over 577 minutes playing together at even strength. During this time, they scored 42.86 percent of the goals, which isn’t very good, and had 49.44 percent of the expected goals, which is about average. The Oilers allowed 107 dangerous chances against them and made 71 dangerous chances while Walman and Nurse were on the ice together. However, they created more dangerous chances when Walman was on the ice but not with Nurse.
Walman’s season wasn’t very impressive, as his best stats were when he played with Bouchard or Ekholm. He needs to work on this part of his game for next season to improve. Another thing that gives hope is that Walman missed 29 games because of injuries he had to recover from. He missed the first six games of the season but then scored a game-winning goal in his very first game back. After that, he played 17 games where he scored three goals and got 10 points, but he got hurt by blocking a shot against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
That injury turned out to be a bone bruise, making him sit out for the next 23 games. When he was back in mid-January, Walman scored five goals and got 10 points in the last 36 games, but he didn’t play especially well.
His injury problem is a concern, since this isn’t the first time he has missed over 20 games in a season. It’s hard to tell if his injuries affected how he played. However, since Walman played better during the playoffs, it gives some hope for the 2026-27 season that maybe this contract will turn out alright after all.
Leave a Reply