Edmonton finally fixed its goaltending. The pick is on the price lagging it.
Oilers Stanley Cup odds improve after adding Devon Levi and Frederik Andersen to address prior goaltending issues. Here's the latest on their chances.
Edmonton has been to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals without winning either one, and goaltending has been part of that story both times. This offseason, for the first time in years, the Oilers actually addressed it.
Where the cap room came from
Edmonton traded Darnell Nurse to San Jose, which took on his full $9.25 million cap hit with no retention in exchange for Shakir Mukhamadullin and Zachary Sharp’s rights. That move by itself is a straightforward cap-relief trade. What Edmonton did with the freed space is the more relevant part for bettors.
It also has to be read against the calendar. Connor McDavid becomes eligible for unrestricted free agency on July 1, 2027, and every dollar Edmonton commits now is being committed against an extension number that could land north of $17 million. A front office in that position does not spend $9.25 million of relief on a luxury. It spends it on the flaw that has ended the last two seasons.
Two additions aimed at one problem
Edmonton used that room to acquire Devon Levi in a trade with Buffalo and to sign Frederik Andersen to a one-year deal worth roughly $1 million. Neither move is flashy. Both are direct attempts to fix the position that has been the clearest hole on a roster that has otherwise been good enough to reach two Cup Finals in a row.
The structure of the tandem is what makes it work as a bet. Andersen is the proven playoff performer, coming off a run in Carolina that showed he can carry a contender through a spring. Levi is the young starter with genuine upside who costs almost nothing against the cap and can absorb the volume an 84-game schedule now demands. Edmonton did not buy one expensive answer and hope it holds. It bought two partial answers that cover each other, which is the cheaper and more durable version of solving this.
The risk the market is right about
Andersen’s price is a one-year deal at roughly $1 million for a reason. His injury history is long enough that the market treats his availability, not his ability, as the open question, and a tandem built on him plus an unproven starter is one bad month from looking like the same problem in new jerseys.
Losing Nurse thins the blue line in front of both of them as well. Edmonton traded a top-four defenseman to pay for the crease, and if the shot quality against goes up, the save percentage that justifies this whole thesis comes down with it. That is the honest counterargument, and it is why this is a futures bet rather than a certainty.
The pick
Back Edmonton’s futures now, before a full season of results forces the price to catch up to the roster fix. The skater talent already justified a short number, and Edmonton was quoted at +1100 in late July, which is a contender price rather than a favourite’s. A cheaper, more credible goaltending group closes the specific gap that ended their last two runs, and that kind of structural fix tends to get priced in slowly rather than all at once.
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