BLOG: Oilers arrive early as captain's skates commence at Rogers Place

EDMONTON, AB – It’s starting to look a lot like Hockey Season in Oil Country, and we’re not even a week into September.

The Edmonton Oilers are taking their first informal strides of the 2023-24 NHL season this week as captain’s skates commence down at Rogers Place with more than two weeks to go until the official start of Oilers Training Camp.

“It's great to be back in Edmonton,” said Oilers winger Zach Hyman, speaking to 630CHED’s Oilers Now Host Bob Stauffer on Tuesday evening. “It's earlier than usual, so it's nice to be back. It feels like we have almost our whole team back and we're up and running already, so it's fun to be back.”

It may be early days still, but everyone’s already accounted for.

All 22 of the Oilers players that remain from last season’s roster and played NHL minutes for the club in ’22-23 have returned to Edmonton well in advance of the new campaign to settle in and get re-acquainted with one another, while allowing the acclimation for some of the few off-season signing like forwards Connor Brown and Lane Pederson.

“I think one of the big things is that we're returning almost our entire team, and I think a reason that we all came back is we're all buddies. We're all close,” Hyman added. “There's not many new guys coming into the fold, and those that are will be able to kind of get acclimated to the team pretty quickly.”

Professional try-outs Sam Gagner and Brandon Sutter are also taking part, in addition to several Bakersfield Condors standouts in Raphael Lavoie and Xavier Bourgault who’ll hope to impress and compete for NHL spots with the Oilers during Training Camp in the coming weeks.

A concerted effort by the Oilers leadership group to have every potential piece of their mounting Stanley Cup push settled in Edmonton well before the start of Training Camp is a testament to how close they think they are to achieving their championship ambitions after losing out to the eventual Cup winners in each of the last two postseasons.

“We're hungry,” Hyman said. “I think last year, we were left with a sour taste and it's something that you want to get back at right away. Obviously, in summer, you have to go to training and whatnot, but we wanted to be back here as soon as possible to kind of get things kicked off.”

"I think there are a handful of teams that are right there and scratching every year, and we want to be a part of that group and we have been."

"You don't know what year is going to be your year, but if you keep knocking and you're there, you're going to break it through."