OverDrive - Bowman on McDavid's contract outlook, Skinner's starting role and creating a winning team

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Edmonton Oilers General Manager Stan Bowman joined OverDrive to discuss the latest on Connor McDavid's contract negotiations, the reasoning of prolonging the choice, the lack of focusing on hypothetical, the process of building a winning culture, the additions to the team, Stuart Skinner's role on the roster and more.

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here's the uh gm of the edmonton orleans stan bowman how you doing stan i'm doing great how are you we're doing well thank you for joining us um we might as well get right at it The elephant in the country, we've been calling it, not just the elephant in the room or the elephant in the market. That would, of course, be Connor McDavid and his contractual status. Why are we at this point? Can you give us kind of a timeline as to why we're still in a position here where camp's almost opening up,

and Conner's got another year left on his deal, but as of now, he has not signed an extension with you guys. Yeah, well, I think, you know, Connor's been pretty open about his thoughts and I don't want to speak for him but I think there's really no secrets or there's not any more to the story other than he's just taking his time and we respect that we understand I mean you know I think he's obviously the best player in the game and we love having him here and he's he's our captain and our leader and you know we're excited about that excited about this season and you know I think he's just working through things on his own

and we kind of understand that. So we'll be patient, but he knows that we love having him here, and we want him to remain in Edmonton. And, you know, that's kind of the process that we're going through right now. If it got to a point where he decided he wanted to leave Edmonton, would you expect him to give you guys a heads up on that decision? You know, I don't like talking about hypothetical. It's like, oh, I get the question.

but I don't think there's value. There's a million different what-ifs that people could throw our way, and I think that's not really a productive discussion. So, you know, I love having him on our team here. I know he's dedicated, and just to quote what he said, there's nothing he wants more than to win the cup in Evanton. So I think that's kind of what we're all focused on right now, heading into next week and looking forward to seeing camp start up.

Stan, do you have any idea kind of, like we're getting close to training camp, what he's waiting to see or kind of get to a point to make a decision? Do you have any idea what that is? No, once again, I don't want to speculate on, I think it's best to just let Connor answer those questions. I don't want to, I've had conversations with him, but that's really stuff that he and I talk about speculating what is on his mind is not really the position that I want to take at this point.

Yeah, last one for me, Stan, before we get into your team and everything else. The one thing that Connor has said openly is he doesn't want this to be a distraction even though you've got a mature team and it's a scenario where guys should be able to handle the pressure of it. At what point, if we're all talking on it, we're all talking about it daily. There's words that we're hanging on. The other day he said, you know, three years, four years, seven years, or no term type of thing, and all of a sudden everybody gravitates to that. Is it a scenario where there is a fine line between this being a business

and the best player in the world trying to sort out a situation and potentially it becoming a distraction for your group that might have to be dealt with in the future? Yeah, I think you raise a good point, which is we live in 2025 where these things are talked about all the time. I think, you know, maybe 30 years ago, the media interactions with the players and the fans was different. But now that we're in the age of social media and everything gets talked about every day, I think you're right. There's going to be questions. And I mean, I know that. I'm sure Connor's aware of that, too. And I think we do want to focus on the season. I mean, there's a lot of exciting things to look forward to for this year. So it's a fair question. And, you

I don't want it to be a distraction either, and O'Connor indicated he doesn't, but we don't control what people talk about, and I understand the interest level of the fans and the media. So that's something that I think it's just going to kind of play out over the next little bit here, and we'll just have to take with what comes our way. With Stan Bowman, the GM of the Edmonton Oilers, like you said, he's hyper-focused on winning a Stanley Cup in Edmonton, Leon Dry Suttall would say the same thing. Darnel Nurse, Ryan Nugent Hopkins. There's been a lot of players that have been there for a long time.

You guys have been to back-to-back cup finals. How does that permeate the front office? You know, where the players are clearly, they're putting an emphasis on it. They're not shying away from it. Like they want to win. They think they can win. They're putting pressure on themselves. Do you feel, you know, different about chasing a cup today compared to two years ago?

Is there more pressure because of the, you know, missed opportunities the past two years? How do you compare in contrast your viewpoint of building this team even compared to the last year or two? Well, I would say we're all on the same page there. We're focused on winning. I mean, I think that's the reason that you get into the sport as you're competitive. I think if not, then it's probably not the right industry for you. So, yeah, I mean, I'm incredibly motivated. I'm fortunate to know what that feeling is like to reach to the top of the mountain.

and I know that there's no other feeling like that. So once you experience winning, it's like an addictive thing. You just want to get back to that. You want to get back to that feeling where you put all your effort into something. And, you know, when things come together, those are the best moments of your career. So that's always been our focus, too. So I don't think there's any, nothing changes from that perspective. We're aligned perfectly on that.

um and i think i would say that the focus though especially as we're on the big at the eve of training camp here it's really more the the process like i think when you focus on the result that's probably not the best way to look at it you got to at the end of the day you got to put yourself in a position where you have a chance to win and like so you take the focus on off of just you know game six or game seven of the Stanley Cup final because you can't really do a lot about that in September but what you can do is you can focus on the process of putting your team in a position

both building it with players and a roster and a coaching staff so that it's possible that you could be in that position months from now where you have a chance and for the players they're focused on you know just getting off to a good like simple things, which you've heard many times before, but that's really the way this works. If you just sit there and try to think of what you need to do to win the last game of the

season and be a Stanley Cup champion, you're probably not going to reach that level because you're focused on the wrong thing. So what we're looking at right now is the process. We want to put ourselves in the position so that there's a lot of good teams out there. I mean, that's just, that's the reality of the sport. and really not just our sport, but every sport, each year, I think there's a group of teams that walk into a season with a realistic chance to be the champions.

And then what happens over the next nine months is going to ultimately reveal who the champion is. So we're starting next week with camp, and we're focused on the process of doing the right things so that we'll be in a good position come the springtime. Stan, you talked about the process. You have a little bit different, I guess, look around the spine of the team. So you go and get Howard, you've got a kid Savoy that might push through.

I think you signed Thomas Sack. You've got some players that aren't household names yet, but is the thought process to get a little bit younger, maybe try and allow some of these younger guys to push through and maybe replace some of the players that you lost last year or just have a different look around some of the older players that have left? Yes, I would say that. It's a great observation, and that has been a focus for our team.

You know, we were more of an experienced veteran team last year, and we still are. I mean, it's not like we changed a lot of players out, but I'm pretty excited to see how some of these new players come in and give our team a little bit of a different look. And I think the biggest thing you're excited about with younger players is the potential for them to grow throughout the course of the season. Like, I don't have expectations that they're going to be. be elite right out of the gate first game of the year because it's a tough league and they've been really really good players at lower levels whether it was junior or college or the American

league in the case of Savoy he was a really good player in Bakersfield last year and he got just a brief introduction to the NHL so I think it's exciting to see that we're going to have to work with them and, you know, be patient, but also help them come along so that they can add something to the mix. And I think, you know, it's probably something we didn't have last year. Like, we didn't see a lot of growth from within. So, like, the players who were good in November were good again in April. But I've always been a believer that for your team to really, I guess, take that next step, you need to have some internal progression and growth. and you can certainly supplement that

by adding new players down the stretch and that's something we're going to be focused on as well but you don't want that to be your only way of getting better you'd like to see some growth from within your team and I think the players you mentioned in addition to David Tomasek is a player who's he's not a young guy because he's played a lot in Europe but I think he's new to the NHL

so I think he's going to be able to show some hopefully some growth as well and take on a role and increase that as we go along. So, you know, we have a lot of stability with our defense. I think that's, it's in a really good place looking at our team last year and we've got everybody coming back and I expect that to be a strength of our team and, you know, trying to work some of these new players in and see how they can take steps, not just to make the team, but also to push forward and take bigger role as the year progresses. With Stan Bowman, the GM of the Oilers,

so as much as we have talked about McDavid and Dry Settle on this show, I would say we've talked about your goal tending as much, if not more, of the last couple of years. And as of today, it's still Skinner and Pickard. The two guys would have been your starters for the last couple of years or your tandem goalies the last couple of years. Take us through the offseason in terms of how we got. God here, Stan, and you know, why do you still have faith in those two guys as your tandem

goalies? Well, I think we did make a change with the goalie coach, and I think that sometimes, like, change is good, and I think a little bit of a different perspective, maybe can unlock certain guys, and I think in our case, we're very optimistic that Stewart's going to be able to take that next step. I mean, he's still a pretty young goalie. As far as the league goes, he's kind of just coming into the prime years of his career. And he's shown that he certainly has the capability to make big saves and win big games for us.

And I think what we're trying to do is maybe bring out the consistency in his game a little bit more. I think his best game is excellent. I mean, we saw that in the playoffs last year. so really how can we work with the strengths that he has and to get the consistency to his game and I think it's early here I've just had a chance to talk to this through the last few days as they're doing their captain skates and I was really excited to hear sort of his outlook on this upcoming season and he seems to really have a good relationship with our new goalie coach And there seems to be a lot of good things happening, not just, you know, the way that he approaches the game technically, but, you know, his mental outlook on things.

And so I'd like to see how that goes. And we know that Pickard has had a great run as he's a battler. He finds a way. And I think that's what you saw last season was, you know, he came in and in some tough moments and was able to. push through and be successful and give our team a boost. So, you know, we're hopeful that that can be the case. And

we want to see how that looks with things over the next little bit here. And, you know, I understand that there's a lot of attention on the goaltending position, not just for the Oilers, but around the league. And that's partly

the way our sport is. Like, you get a lot of attention when you're the last line of defense and they probably get too much credit and too much criticism just in general that position because the spotlight is on you so as a result you have to have some resiliency and I think Stewart has shown that and the same thing with Calvin so

we're hopeful that they can get off to a good start here Stan Leon got married in the summer and there was a picture that surfaced and he had a dart going is that a closed-door meeting or does he get a hall pass for the dart at the weather because I know if a fourth line stiff had that pick float around, you'd have a conversation with him, but does dry sight get a hall pass or what? I think Leon's going to be just fine in that department.

He's, yeah, I was happy to see he had a great summer, and I know I've heard a lot about that. They had a great time together as a team at his wedding, and, you know, he's a tremendous player and a great guy, great leader and you know we're very fortunate to have Leon here on our side. Keep in mind, oh, Stan's been around the game a long time. He's seen guys show up with cigarettes to the rink. That's, you know, back in the 80s and the 70s, all of that type of stuff.

So it's just a different generation now. There you go. All good. Thanks, Stan. Offseason mode. Thanks, Stan. Good luck with camps opening up. Thank you for doing us.

No problem. Thanks, guys. Stan Bowman. GM of the Oilers. Hey, this is Ruby Carr, the host of the podcast, Encore. Weedith's teenage Dirtbag is one of the most relatable songs of all time. But thanks to its impossible falsetto, maybe not the easiest to sing. She said I got tickets to iron main in.

Yes, that famous female vocal verse was recorded by vocalist Brendan Brown in 2000. And thanks to a tech mix-up again in 2020. Listen to Encore on the IHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts for the stories behind all the songs you love.