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A huge Oilers roster shakeup could already be underway under Stan Bowman

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Vincent Carbonneau
May 24, 2026  (11:00)
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Darnell Nurse plan says everything about Oilers
Photo credit: Screenshot

Darnell Nurse and Edmonton's next head coach are sitting in the middle of the same offseason mess already.

That is why this kind of Oilers blueprint gets attention fast.

The idea you shared is aggressive on the surface. Move Nurse, Ike Howard, Trent Frederic and Mattias Janmark. Re-sign Jason Dickinson, Colton Dach, Connor Murphy, Kasperi Kapanen and Curtis Lazar. Add Maxim Berezkin. Then go get a 1A goalie to play ahead of Tristan Jarry.

It sounds busy.

But once you strip it down, the whole thing still comes back to the exact same Edmonton problem.

Goaltending.

Because if the Oilers do all of that and still do not land a real answer in net, then what did they actually fix?

I can see the Oilers moving Nurse, Howard, Frederic and Janmark this off season.

Resigning Dickinson, Dach, Murphy, Kapanen and Lazar.

Signing Berezkin

Getting a 1A goalie to play ahead of Jarry, who will be acting as the backup.

All the rest will remain status quo.

The Oilers may be headed for major roster changes after latest Stan Bowman buzz

That is the hard truth with Edmonton.

You can move Nurse and reshape part of the blue line. You can clean out a few forwards and bring back tougher bottom-six pieces. You can talk yourself into one or two fresh faces changing the vibe.

None of it hits hard enough if the team is still walking into next season with uncertainty in goal.

That is why the Jarry line matters most in this whole idea.

If he is the backup and Edmonton brings in a real 1A, then at least the club is admitting what everybody can see. It cannot keep pretending a maybe-solution in net is good enough for a team built around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

That part makes sense.

The rest is where the blueprint gets a lot shakier.

Moving Nurse is a huge swing, but only if the return actually helps the roster instead of just clearing stress off the cap sheet. Re-signing half the depth group also risks keeping too much of the same feel around a team that already needs more than cosmetic change.

And that is the danger.

This kind of plan looks bold because there are a lot of names in it. But if most of the roster stays status quo, like the post says, then Edmonton may still be too close to the same team that keeps running into the same wall.

That wall is not one player.

It is not one line.

It is not one coach.

It is the bigger problem of whether the Oilers can finally build a team that feels stable when the games get tight.

That starts in goal.

So yes, moving Nurse would be loud.

Yes, a few forward tweaks would matter.

But if the 1A goalie piece does not become a real solution, then this still feels like Edmonton rearranging the roster without truly changing the ending.