Edmonton Oilers at the 2025 NHL Draft

For the Edmonton Oilers, two things have become commonplace at the NHL draft in recent years. 1) The Oilers do not usually draft very high. This is due to their success in the regular season and the fact that the Oilers are often trading high picks for players to help in their Stanley Cup push. 2) The Oilers have often lacked picks overall. Again, a product of going all in each year.

The 2025 NHL draft was no different. The team entered the draft with four picks and added an additional fifth round pick by trading its fifth round pick in 2026 to Nashville. The team also had no picks until #83 in the third round. So, as in years past, the margin for error to have a successful draft was narrow. How did they do? Well, given what the Oilers had in terms number and quality of picks it was a solid draft.

For those wondering, my assessment of what makes a successful draft is based on the number of players a team produces who play at least 200 NHL games minimum. If a team has its first round pick, my expectation is two players need to play in the NHL. An example for the Oilers is the 2017 NHL draft where Kailer Yamamoto was drafted in a the first round and Stuart Skinner in the third round. That is a solid draft. When an NHL team does not have its first round pick, I am looking for one player to make the jump. Anything more than one is a bonus. The Oilers best example is 2006 when Jeff Petry was drafted in the second round. Petry is just 19 games short of 1000 for his career. Theo Peckham almost made that a great draft as he played 160 games after being drafted in the third round.

This brings us to the 2025 draft year. With no first rounder, my target is the Oilers put one player into the NHL for 200 games. How did the team do? Well, let’s go to the tape.

Tommy Lafrenière - Forward - No.83 Overall

Lafrenière was the Oilers’ first pick in the 2025 NHL Draft. Lafrenière is a 5’11”, 172 pound forward with a motor that never quits. This is his most dominant trait. Lafrenière is in the play on every shift. He uses a combination of pace and smarts to cause opponents headaches in all three zones. This clip of an example of every game he plays.

The clips shows a really nice transition step in skating followed by another quick push to close the space on the defender. Lafrenière has good mechanics skating wise. Here is a slowed-down clip to see his technique. Notice how low his skates stay to the ice. Lower skates means less time and work to get them back under his center of gravity for the next push. His hips, knees and toes are all in alignment and he has good ankle flexion. The second clip shows this again. The only area of compromise is with the upper body. He can get over top of his skates to much causing loss of power and balance on occasion. This is easy to remedy and should only enhance his skating.

Without a doubt Lafrenière has all of the defensive chops to play professional hockey. Watch this defensive zone work where Lafrenière uses nice transition footwork and his smarts to turn a puck over and get on the attack.

Here is another clip from the neutral zone where Lafrenière simply closes the gap before the puck carrier can make a play to move the puck. Instead, Lafrenière gets the turnover and he’s off to the races.

On the development side, Lafrenière has two areas that need some work. The first one is his strength. He’s not six feet, so he is undersized at the NHL level. He can overcome that by getting stronger. This will be key. It will add to Lafrenière’s forecheck ability and his defensive prowess. It will also help his skating power which is good, but not great.

The other element is offence. When I noted yesterday on X that Lafrenière was a reach at #83, it was based on this element of his game. Lafrenière finished 24-32-56 in 68 games with the Blazers. This worked out to a .82 points per game. Given the Blazers anemic offence (19th of 22 teams in goals for), it is not a bad total. What worries me with Lafrenière is 23 of his points were on the powerplay. To have 41% of the points come off the powerplay and have a points per game average below 1.00 is a concern. This will need to improve in his draft plus one year. It doesn’t mean there is no offensive skill. It is there in flashes. He has no troubles playing in the middle of the ice and you see for a flash some really nice hands to create a chance.

His shot is also average to above average. It is not heavy, but it is very accurate and comes off his stick deceptively.

Where I think the key for more offensive success lies for Lafrenière is attacking with pace. Often, he slows the pace down on the attack looking for seams to skate or pass into. This will make him easier to check as a professional. Where I think he can take steps in his next junior season is attacking with pace. Here is a clip of what he can do when he is aggressive in his attack.

I love this play. Lafrenière doesn’t slow down. He slides through seams and then when given space up top, closes down into a better shooting position quickly. His shot again beats the goalie relatively clean.

Keys For Next Season

For the upcoming year, my focus will be on Lafrenière’s offence at 5v5 with pace. His skating is good enough with the puck to make defenders nervous. He just needs to attack them harder to create more time and space for himself.

Lafrenière also needs to work consistently at building out his frame to help him get ready for the professional game.

David Lewandowski - Forward - No. 117 Overall

In the fourth round, the Oilers drafted a very good player in David Lewandowski. Lewandowski, a German national, had quite the year starting out in the DEL in Germany, but made the move to Saskatoon early in the season. His offence was ok at 15-24-39 in 52 games which was good for .75 points per game. Impressively though, 31 of those points came at even strength. Lewandowski saw very little powerplay time on the top unit.

When you watch Lewandowski, he has power forward potential written all over him. He’s 6’2” and played this year at 177 pounds. Not massive yet, but watch these clips on how he plays right now.

Here is another clip in what I think will be a prototypical offensive play for Lewandowski. Great first step to get into a position to win a wall battle. Then watch the puck protection coming to the middle of the ice. Finally, a great release to finish the play.

Here is one final clip of how Lewandowski plays the game. Again, very hard to knock off the puck through this whole shift. When he gets a chance, he brings the puck to the net and finishes.

Lewandowski’s puck protection, physical nature and wall work are all sublime. When he gets to 200 pounds, he is going to be a force and these skills are projectable to the professional leagues.

The other standout element to his game is his shot release. Lewandowski’s shot is heavy and it comes off the stick in a very quick way.

I would expect Lewandowski to score more goals from distance this season now that he has acclimatized to North America. This will assuredly happen both at even strength and on the powerplay.

In terms of skating, there is room for improvement. His skating isn’t poor. Indeed, it is quite powerful when he gets going, but there are some mechanical improvements needed. The upper body is in a good spot. Nice tilt of the chest to create leg drive, but not too much to cause balance issues. His lower body alignment is also good with toes, knees and hips in a nice balance set-up. The key is the boot return to center. Watch how high off the ground the skates are when he is pulling them back. This creates a long return to center which means less time the blades are on the ice. Less skating speed and power.

Here you can see it again in overtime. It is not a fatal technical issue as he gets around decently at 3v3.

This is not a tough fix and the Oilers skating development coaches will likely be on this matter next week at development camp. Indeed, this could be transforming for Lewandowski because I believe he has a chance to be a breakout prospect for the Oilers this season.

Keys For Next Season

The skating. Again, it is not poor, but he would be very dynamic if and when it improves. This will be the key for his professional development as well.

I’m less worried about his scoring totals than Lafreniere. Lewandowski scored at 5v5 very well. This in a chopped up season with him coming over from Germany early. Now with a full season under his belt and with the likelihood of first powerplay unit minutes, he is primed to score a bunch. He could really pop this season offensively so watch him closely.

Asher Barnett - Defenceman - No.131 Overall

Barnett was the result of a trade by the Oilers to move into this slot, so you know the organization liked this player here. Barnett is an average sized left shot defenceman who comes in at 6’1” and 200 pounds. He played his last two years with the National Development Team Program in the United States. There are two ways to look at Barnett as a player. He doesn’t have any one stand out skill or he is a multi-faceted player who does a bunch of stuff well. In the end, I think the former is what caused him to get drafted in the fifth round.

Barnett’s calling card is his defence. No question. He’s a strong young man who plays a physical style of game for the most part.

Barnett is also a very good skater which helps him in defending, but also on puck retrievals and exits. Here is a very nice clip of Barnett’s skating style. He really has a text book body set-up with the chest being at a nice tilt. The lower body is nicely aligned and there is great ankle flexion in his drive. He is a very powerful skater with a nice quick start element.

It allows him to defend with confidence as well. Here he gets up the ice into a good vertical gap. His horizontal gap isn’t great, but he is able to push into the player and knock the puck loose.

His skating also helps him on the retrieval and exit game. I think this is one of the best parts of Barnett’s game. Watch this series of explosive steps to separate himself from the checker and make an outlet pass.

Players with this type of skating ability and physicality do not go in the fifth round for no reason. In Barnett’s case, the offence is the area of question. No question he has not been dynamic. However, he isn’t poor either. In 58 games with NDTP, he went 8-14-22. To give you some perspective, Charlie Trethewey, who was drafted in the third round had 20 points in 63 games. Furthermore, at the U18 World Championships this Spring, he was the second leading defenceman on his team with six points in seven games while captaining the team. What makes me think there is more there is that Barnett has had to play a lot of weakside defence. Indeed, most of this year, he spent his time on the right side. It led to plays like this one.

You can see the challenge here. I wonder about whether Barnett struggled with confidence offensively playing his weakside. I think if he can get into a proper slotting, he may show more than people expect.

Keys For Next Season

Barnett is headed to the University of Michigan this season. Freshman typically do not play higher end roles. However, the focus for Barnett is creating more offence for himself and his teammates. He doesn’t need to work on his strength and conditioning and his defensive play is strong. For Barnett, the next step is to focus on his offensive game.

Daniel Salonen - Goalie - No.191 Overall

For those that know me well, they know what is coming. I don’t evaluate goalies. To me, they are voodoo tied up in a myriad of technical elements that make my head spin. Salonen’s pick makes it two years in a row for the Oilers with Finnish goalies. Last year, they took Eemil Vinni, who had back surgery.

Salonen is 6’3” and 185 pounds. He catches right and was an overage draft pick here. He had a tremendous year in the Finnish U20 league winning the Best Goalie award and Best Player award. He’s off to the top Finnish professional league to play Lukko with Antti Raanta this coming season.

Aidan Park - Forward - No. 223 Overall

Park is an odd one for me. Park has scored where ever he has gone. I remember him playing with Shattuck St. Mary’s thinking this was a very crafty center with high skill. He played prep hockey in his first draft year and that likely caused some concern for scouts. This year in the USHL, he finished fifth in scoring at 33-33-66 in 55 games, which was one point behind Ryker Lee who was taken in the first round. No question, it is not a direct comparison because of the age difference (10 months older), but it still seems odd.

He’s also not small at 6’1” and 188 pounds. He can get knocked around a little, but he has a frame that can be build out.

The most obvious area for improvement for Park is his skating. It is not bad, but it is at one speed. Take a look at this shift on the powerplay where he receives the bump back pass. You’ll notice that there is really no gear change here to put pressure on the defenders. He makes a great play, but it is not due to a change of pace.

There is no question, Park will need to improve his skating here to make it more dynamic, but skating is one development skill teams are very good at teaching.

On the other side of the coin, Park is a very good offensive player. He’s sneaky good on the walls to create offence. Watch this little play where he wins a battle without really having to make a physical play and then sends a great pass over for a goal.

Park is also a really good 200 foot player with a strong desire to play hard in all three zones. Watch this clip here and notice how he works back to the puck to create a transition play. Then he holds a nice F3 posture in the offensive zone. This leads to a great neutral zone turnover by him which leads to a high-skilled offensive play.

Keys For Next Season

Now do not get me wrong. 31 teams in this draft and 32 last year didn’t miss on a kid destined for greatness. Park has work no question. His explosiveness in skating needs to improve. He needs ways to get defenders to back off.

He also needs to work on his fitness. Not so much strength, but his fitness. He often took parts of shifts off and I think it was related to his conditioning. He will get some world-class help there when he goes to the University of Michigan next season.

Summary

This was a solid draft for the Oilers. I thought Lafrenière could have been chosen later given what was available, but that does not make it a bad pick. The rest of the skater picks were good in their slots with Lewandowski being one I could see having a breakout season. There is a chance this draft has one player in it, but it is likely only one and it is only a chance. What happens with development will determine how successful this draft is for the Edmonton Oilers.

Thanks for reading my inaugural Substack post. Please leave your feedback here. See you next week with my Edmonton Oilers Prospect Countdown.