Oilers add offensive skill, even a defenceman, to prospect pool at 2025 NHL Draft

The Edmonton Oilers made five new picks at the 2025 NHL draft. Oilers GM Stan Bowman says McDavid's contract talks will begin "whenever they're ready."

As you can imagine, the Edmonton Oilers had little in the way of work to do on Day 1 of the National Hockey League Draft.

That’s because Friday is devoted to the first round. The Oilers, who’ve been busy assembling the NHL’s most-veteran team the last few years and trading away picks for players as they chase a Stanley Cup, didn’t have a selection until Saturday’s third round.

In the end, the Oilers took five players from the latter rounds of the 2025 draft held chiefly via conference call but with a live component in Los Angeles.

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The Oilers made their first pick at No. 83, taking winger Tommy Lafreniere. Another winger, David Lewandowski, was their selection in Round 4, 117th overall, while defenceman Asher Barnett (No. 131), goaltender Daniel Salonen (No. 191) and centre Aiden Park (No. 223) rounded out their final list.

Rick Pracey, the Oilers’ director of amateur scouting, characterized Lafreniere as a skilled forward who “makes plays (and) has a good stick, so we think he’s going to take off offensively.”

“He played sort of on a bubble team lower in the standings, so we think the team’s going to improve,” Pracey told media on Saturday of Lafreniere’s junior club, the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League. “We think he’s going to be a significant part of it.”

Pracey sees Edmonton’s fourth-round pick, another Western League forward in Lewandowski of the Saskatoon Blades, in much the same way, skilled and able to make plays.

“These guys are good off the cycle,” he said. “They can extend offensive zone time. They can play with skill. They make quick decisions.”

In adding U.S. development teamer Barnett, for whom the Oilers traded a draft pick next year for the 131st selection, Pracey said the Oilers’ staff was “a little worried about the overall defensive depth” of the 2025 draft pool but pulled the trigger to snag the 6-foot-1, 198 lb. rearguard.

“We were worried about late rounds,” Pracey said. “Obviously (our) first two picks were forwards, so being able to add (a defenceman) really helped to diversify the draft class.”

With their final piuck of the draft, the second-to-last in the NHL this year, the Oilers went with a player in attendance in L.A.: centre Aidan Park of Hermosa Beach, Calif., who scored 33 goals and 33 assists for 66 points in 55 games with USHL Green Bay this past season and finished the 2024-25 campaign with the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen. The nephew of former NHL player Richard Park was No. 94 in NHL Central Scouting’s rankings of North American skaters.

General manager Stan Bowman said he was pleased the Oilers could take a player with his skill at that late point.

“He’s one of those guys that, for whatever reason, was passed over, but now you look at what he was able to do in a good league, and he’s going to a good school next year (Michigan), I think he’ll get an opportunity,” Bowman told media after the draft.

“We think he’s got a lot of game, offensive ability, and later in the draft, you’re looking for guys with a lot of upside, and he has it, for sure.”