Oilers add depth, Chiarelli keeping focus on re-signing McDavid, Draisaitl

EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers used the first day of free agency to add some organizational depth, while general manager Peter Chiarelli kept his focus on re-signing two of his own stars.

Edmonton agreed to a deals with seven players on Saturday, the opening day of NHL free agency. All seven spent the majority of last season in the American Hockey League, with forward Ty Rattie having the most NHL experience of the bunch. 

“What we’ve done is what I’d call (signing) depth players,” said Chiarelli. 

“What we tried to do today is communicate with a couple free agents, talk a little bit with other teams about potential trades. We weren’t really in the market for larger free agents. I felt OK about today. … Maybe some deals that come down later in the summer.”

The 24-year-old Rattie appeared in 22 games last season with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. He has produced 71 goals and 141 points in 215 career AHL games.

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The Calgary, Alberta native also appeared in five games with the Carolina Hurricanes last season, with two assists. Rattie has 35 career NHL games under his belt with the St. Louis Blues and Carolina, scoring four goals and 10 points.

“I think he’s underachieved at the NHL level,” said Chiarelli. 

“Real good hockey sense, good release, very smart player. He’s underachieved. We think he has a chance to play on our team, if not he’ll provide us depth.”

Edmonton also signed forwards Mitch Callahan, Grayson Downing and Brian Ferlin, defencemen Ryan Stanton and Keegan Lowe, as well as goaltender Eddie Pasquale.

Chiarelli made his biggest moves in the days leading up to July 1, trading long-time forward Jordan Eberle to the Islanders for forward Ryan Strome and re-signing defenceman Kris Russell to a four-year contract extension reportedly worth a total of US$16 million. Chiarelli also cleared some salary cap space with the buyout of forward Benoit Pouliot.

Chiarelli said on Saturday that inking new contracts for stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl currently takes priority over anything else.

The 21-year-old Draisaitl is a restricted free agent after coming off his three-year entry-level deal while McDavid’s entry-level contract expires at the end of the 2017-18 season.

“Our priority is to sign both Connor and Leon,” said Chiarelli.

“We’ve made some efforts with transactions prior to today to get some cap space, we were able to sign Russell, (Zack) Kassian and (Eric )Gryba. We’ve got Connor and Leon to sign and need cap space there (too). We’re in a comfortable spot for cap space, frankly we feel good about our team.”

Callahan and Stanton were signed to two-year contracts while Downing, Ferlin, Rattie, Lowe and Pasquale got one-year deals.

The Canadian Press