DRAFT: Oilers tasked with finding value in fewer picks at 2024 Draft

LAS VEGAS, NV – Oilers Director of Amateur Scouting Rick Pracey has a firm understanding as he enters his 24th NHL Draft – and first with the Oilers – that there comes a cost with having your team compete for a Stanley Cup, and it’s usually draft picks.

"That's the price of winning," Pracey said, speaking with Oilers TV's Tony Brar on Friday. "When you have less draft capital over the years it takes its toll, but that's not a judgmental statement or anything. We just were 20 minutes [from the Stanley Cup], so whatever it takes."

That’s just business in the NHL when building a championship contender, but it makes the process for Pracey and his amateur scouting department of digging deeper to try and find value in some of the later-round selections for the Oilers that much more valuable despite their depleted draft stock for this weekend’s 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

The Oilers own a second-round pick (64^th overall) along with selections in the fifth round (160^th), two in the sixth round (183^rd & 192^nd) and two in the seventh round (196th & 218^th) after trading away their 2024 first-round pick in the deal that brought Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick to Edmonton from Anaheim at the Trade Deadline.

Pracey and his staff have built their own internal list based on months of work throughout the regular season following players' progress and completing video calls, background checks and in-person viewings of prospects they think could be available to them beginning at 64th overall, hoping to find first-round value when they make their first selection late in the second round.

"It's a challenge trying to predict," Pracey said. "So essentially we'll build our list, but we'll start from one and then we'll try and have a target range. So for us on our own list, we're trying to get within that 20-to-45 range on our personal list, and we'll need some help to get there – probably a magic number of around 20 – and then we'll really pound out those names, sort of 30-to-45 and hopefully get one of them."

After such a successful season at the top for the Oilers, Pracey believes the team's position as a contender gives his department confidence to follow their models and go with their guts.

"It's nice in some ways that we're not over-evaluating where 'we're deep at this position' or 'we have team needs at this position'. We kind of have a bit of a blank canvas right now to swing away."