CAMP: Oilers players ready for fast-paced, competitive Training Camp

EDMONTON, AB – Welcome to 2023 Edmonton Oilers Training Camp.

Buckle up, because this season is going to be a fun ride.

The Blue & Orange arrived at Rogers Place on Wednesday for the official start of Training Camp with a full team meeting, fitness testing, medicals and media availabilities – with players and coaches set to take to the ice on Thursday for their first on-ice sessions of the 2023-24 NHL season.

A total of 57 players (six goaltenders, 19 defencemen and 32 forwards) are ready to be put through the paces over the coming weeks – including eight pre-season games – as they compete against one another to either keep hold of their places on the roster, stake claim to one of the few but highly-coveted spots that’ll be up for grabs, earn an NHL contract, or make an impression on the coaching and management staff before joining the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors or returning to their respective professional, collegiate and junior teams.

In reality, however, the Oilers are already two weeks into those preparations for having good start to their regular season.

The majority of Edmonton’s extended organizational depth chart has already been in town for the past few weeks adjusting to the city and getting an early head start on their year through Captain’s Skates after captain Connor McDavid put the word out in the off-season for the group to be ready to begin work by the end of the first week of September.

The Oilers hope their early jump on the new campaign will help them gel as a group and give them a leg up in the first few weeks of the regular season as every NHL team begins their training camp this week with similar ambitions of lifting the Stanley Cup nine months from now.

But for that to happen, making the playoffs will be the primary objective for the Oilers, who'll take a day-to-day approach toward achieving their overall objective of being the team that lifts hockey's holy grail as the last team standing this coming June.

“We had a good regular season last year. You’ve got to do it all over again,” Oilers General Manager & President of Hockey Operations Ken Holland said. “All 32 teams have hopes and aspirations of making the playoffs, so I'm always nervous. I have great respect for how hard it is to make the playoffs.”

Extra attention this Camp and pre-season will be paid to the club’s bottom-six forwards and depth on defence, with approximately 18 roster spots on the Oilers already looking locked in for the coming campaign by returning veterans and a few up-and-coming but established players who’ve earned the right of first refusal in those positions.

“I think as we come in, do we know 18 or 19 players that are going to be on the roster to open the season? Absolutely,” Holland said. “We’ve got a few things we got to sort out, and then obviously, we’ve got to play as a team at a high level starting on opening night.”

But to win the Stanley Cup, it’ll take everyone within the organization pulling on the same rope to achieve their steadfast championship aspirations – whether you’re the captain coming off a historic 153-point season, or the highly-touted rookie who’s aiming to be the first call-up from Bakersfield when injuries and other attributing factors lead to roster moves.

“We're going to have injuries over 82 games,” Holland said. “To think we're going with the same twelve forwards and they're just going to be in there every night, or vice versa the same six defensemen, I hope it happens but I think the reality is you need depth.

“I said to these guys today in the meeting: ‘If you're a player coming into camp and you don't quite see yourself on the team, you need to have a good camp because the reality is, over the course of 82 games, we're probably going to play 15-to-16 forwards and we're probably going to play eight, nine or 10 defence. I think you’ve got to plan on that now because we're tight to the cap.”

Winger Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg are two intriguing names to keep an eye on throughout Camp as both Oilers youngsters aim to establish themselves as full NHL regulars this coming campaign after experiencing varying levels of success in Edmonton during the ’22-23 season.

Broberg has already been a part of the Oilers organization for parts of four seasons since his first-round selection at the 2019 NHL Draft and will be looking to showcase his readiness for a full-time job with a strong showing over the pre-season games.

“I don't know if anyone's going to play six, seven or eight, but I would think that Broberg, Holloway, and three or four others in that group would probably play five games,” Holland said. “Then we’ve got to make some decisions as we put our team together.”

The 22-year-old is poised to get his fair share of opportunity this pre-season and continue mentoring under fellow Swedish defenceman Mattias Ekholm, who’s set to start Training Camp on the sidelines with a mild hip flexor strain.

“I think I'm trying to talk to Broby as much as I can because I think he's got all the skill,” Ekholm said. “He's probably the best-trained guy in the room. He skates well, he can defend, he's big and he does have it all. Sometimes with young defensemen, they just need to find that last little ‘get over the hump’ so to speak, where they get comfortable enough to just play their game."

Broberg isn’t the only one to receive extra mentorship from within the locker room, with Evander Kane prepared to provide some of that veteran guidance for a young player in Holloway who he says is now deserving of the ‘Hollywood’ moniker he was hesitant to bestow on him last season.

“Hollywood and I, and I'll call him Hollywood this year, we have a good relationship and I think he's a player that obviously has a great skillset,” Kane said of Holloway. “But you saw spurts of it last year – he isn't afraid to play the game in a physical way. You saw him have a fight there in Seattle. I was in the press box for that and watched that, so you see the bite that he has in his game and I think that accompanied with his skill set, he could make him a really good player.

“I think the biggest thing for him is just maybe understanding sometimes less is more in certain situations on the ice and using his shot to his advantage, because I think he has one of the best shots on the team.”