DRAFT: Oilers leaning towards making the 29th selection

MONTREAL, QC - As things stand in the camp of the Edmonton Oilers ahead of the 2022 NHL Draft, Oilers General Manager & President of Hockey Operations Ken Holland is expecting to step up onto the stage at the Bell Centre on Thursday night and make the club's first-round selection.
The Oilers are slated to pick 29th overall, with Holland saying in his pre-draft media availability on Wednesday that conversations surrounding trading up, down or parting with the pick are currently leaning the executive towards keeping the late first-round selection and adding a valuable prospect to the club's pool of prospects.
"I'm expecting that we're going to use it as we speak," Holland said. "I'm expecting we're going to make a pick. Right now, I am [picking 29]. We're not going to trade up and I don't think anyone is going to trade up now.
"If you have someone falling and the phone rings, we'll explore it at the time."

Oilers Director of Amateur Scouting Tyler Wright spoke earlier in the day with Oilers TV about the depth of this year's draft class awarding Edmonton the opportunity to find value plenty of value at 29th overall despite picking at the bottom end of the first round.
"We don't have a lot of picks, so we're trying to get a little creative maybe with that," Wright said. "But we still think we're going to get pretty good value at pick 29. We've got to improve. We've got some good kids coming and obviously, our club up top had a good run this year. We're trying to get better and it starts here tomorrow."
Wright spoke to the success stories during a strong season for the Oilers in '21-22 of drafted talent like Ryan McLeod, Kailer Yamamoto, Evan Bouchard, and more taking massive leaps to contribute to a Western Conference Final exit for the Blue & Orange.
Dylan Holloway is coming off his first season of professional hockey and a taste of playoff hockey against Colorado, while Xavier Bourgault went on a deep Memorial Cup run with the Shawinigan Cataractes. Carter Savoie is entering the pro ranks coming off a national championship with the University of Denver and Wright identified the team's need to restock the supply line of talent with the next wave of talent on the verge of impacting the big club.

"The way that we want the Edmonton Oilers to look in two, three, four or five years from now, we want to play fast," he said. "We want to play smart, we want to play skilled, and we're going to push a guy up that list that hits those criteria. Obviously, as a draft unfolds and at this time in their development in the industry, there are deficiencies in those molds. We think that we're going to get good value. We've got good pieces coming.
"We've had some guys take some next steps and now we have to continue growing that pool of players. It starts tomorrow."
The need to meticulously plan out every pick to extract the most value from the selection needs to be weighed hand-in-hand with the club's hopes of improving the club immediately at the NHL level.
While they're prepared to make every selection at their disposal in the Draft, Wright and Holland know any plan heading into the draft can change in an instant.
"I think you prepare for having every pick. You have to do that," Wright said. "At the end of the day, if Ken decides that we're going to move the pick to better our team right now, that's great. But we're also prepared to make the pick. We're also prepared if we wanted to move back, but you have to have a willing partner to come up and make that deal.
"There's a lot of preparation that goes in and you think you're prepared, then all of the sudden you get to the draft floor and everything goes out the window."