Coming off two straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final, the Edmonton Oilers were looking for a third straight trip to the Final in June. They were taken down the last two seasons by the Florida Panthers, but this season, Florida did not make the playoffs.
That meant that there is going to be a new Stanley Cup champion. It was there for the taking for the Oilers to break through and win it after two years of disappointments in the Final. As it turns out, there will be a new Western Conference champ this spring.
Facing elimination against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night in Southern California, Edmonton fell behind 2-0 in the first period and was not able to recover in a 5-2 loss that ended the Oilers' season in Game 6. They are in store for a fascinating offseason, and one former Bruins first-round pick is there for the long haul. It's a contract that isn't going to age well in Alberta.
Oilers stuck with former Bruins first-round pick Trent Frederic
When Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney made some deals at the 2024 trade deadline, one of the moves was sending former first-round draft pick Trent Frederic to Edmonton. It was a three-team trade that was a dump by Sweeney. Last summer, the Oilers and GM Stan Bowman signed Frederic to an eight-year deal with an AAV of $3.85 million. That is a deal that is not going to age well.
This season in 74 games, he had four goals and seven points with a plus/minus of minus-15 while averaging 11 minutes a night. Yikes. He didn't get into the final two games of the Anaheim series. It's safe to say that Oilers fans are not going to like what the future holds. There is very little chance that the deal will be moved anytime soon.
If there is one fanbase that saw this coming, it was Boston. Even Sweeney knew that he wasn't going to re-sign in Boston and moved him. The return was a dump, and you could say that he fleeced Edmonton in terms of just getting out from under him. Now, with another contention window wasted on Connor McDavid, Frederic is just part of the long line of brutal contracts handed out in Edmonton.
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