OverDrive - Bowman on the Oilers' season views, McDavid and Draisaitl leading the team and the salary cap increasing

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Edmonton Oilers General Manager Stan Bowman joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the Oilers, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl leading the team, the NHL salary cap increasing in the league, the excitement playing in a Canadian market, the outlook for the trade deadline and more.

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Let's go. New year, new you. New you. New you. Explore it all. Feel brand new. At iHeartRadio.ca and on the free iHeartRadio app. Here's the GM of the Edmonton Oilers here's Stan Bowman. How you doing Stan? I'm doing great. How are you doing? We're doing well. We're just you know talking about the four nations. I'm curious you know there is a defense spot available

obviously for the Canadian team and there could be other injuries and other opportunities. Are you in a position to pitch your own guys? Like Evan Bouchard, Zach Hyman, are you in a position to do that with Doug Armstrong? What is your role and, you know, how these teams are kind of fulfilling these different roles that maybe they still have to have to find players for? I'm not sure on their process or like how each country's done it to decide. I think they have committees and they have NHL GMs on there so I would imagine they're I don't know their process to be honest with you so I guess we'll wait and see. Certainly we're happy to talk about the players on our team and explain how well they've played this season and and then at the end of the day is a lot of good players in Canada

So it's a tough team to make as you can imagine but yeah, I'm Obviously, I'm happy about the performance for our group here and If they want to know I'd be happy to promote our guys and if they want to know, I'd be happy to promote our guys. Well, you've got a guy that played his first game the other night and it's John Klingberg. How did that situation come about and how happy are you that he landed in Edmonton with you?

Yeah, well, it's great to see him get a chance to play. I know he's worked very hard to get himself back. It's been a long road for John. Looking back, he had the surgery and he really did a lot of time preparing to get back to this point where he could play games. He worked really hard at it and we've been impressed in the short time we've known him here. Very optimistic for what he's going to bring to our team. So he's looked great and he's only been here for whatever a week and a half and he finally got a chance to play a game. I think when he gets, you know,

it's hard jumping into a season 50 games in, everyone else is playing at top level and you're just trying to get yourself up to speed. And practicing is, I mean he's been practicing for a long time, I think you need to get some games under your belt and I'm very encouraged where he's going to be and I think we're going to help him get to that next level where he's got so much ability and so much talent. I think it's for him just being able to move to the better than he's moved in the past. He's never felt better with his hips. So that's a great sign.

And I'm excited to see how that looks when he's kind of in mid-season form and he gets some more games under his belt. Dan, whenever there's international competition, there's always owners and GMs that are trepidatious about sending their players there for fear of injury or whatever might harm them. But I wonder, I know McDavid's going and Canada expects it, but how happy, I guess, are you that there's no Team Germany? Yeah, I mean, Leon's been outstanding this year. I think, you know, it's really a pleasure

to get to see McDavid and Dreisaitl every day and watching just their level of play. It's really a treat. They're such great players. So yeah, in Leon's case, I guess obviously it's not the worst thing to have him get a little bit of relaxation there while everyone else is playing. It's not that taxing of a tournament. There's not that many games. So I'm not that worried about our players who are playing there. But Leon's had an amazing season. He's

such a talented player and you know we're lucky to get to watch him every night. Well chatting with Stan Bowman, Edmonton Oilers GM and Leifster and Edmonton playing the Oilers tomorrow and and the news came out earlier this morning that the NHL is now forecasting pretty significant cap bumps moving forward. I don't recall ever seeing a three-year projection from the league, but they decided to do that today. The current cap ceiling is $88 million. Next year it'll be $95.5 million, then $104 million, then $113.5 million.

That's what the league is projecting. Obviously it could fluctuate a little bit. But as one of the 32 guys who have to kind of weaponize that cap space and utilize it to build the best team possible, how do you react and how does this possibly change the way you operate on a daily basis knowing what these numbers are looking like and what it projects to be over the next three years? Well, you're right. It's a unique situation. We haven't had this before with the salary cap. There's never been this much certainty going forward. So I think we're all going to adapt to that. It's a little bit of a new world for us. And I think think I guess in simple terms of course it offers more flexibility if

you're a team that has been right at the cap then you know when the cap goes up you've got a little bit more flexibility to change your team around or add new players. You know the flip side to that is I'm sure the agents just want more money for the clients then. So, you figured that out, eh, Stan? Yeah. So, net-net, I don't know if it's much different. You're just kind of arguing over different numbers, but it's still going to be challenging as far as when you have a good team with good players, you know, they make a lot of money.

And I have no problem with that. Like the great players are the ones that help you win, you know, get that competitive advantage over your competition. So it's okay when players make money. It means that they are good players and they performed well. That's how they get their contracts. So, you know, I think how it will all play out, I think remains to be seen, but, you know, certainly there are more options, like whereas in the past maybe you just, there was no cap room, now there will be some cap room. It then depends on how you want to allocate it and how many players you have coming up for new deals. And I think it's hard to make real concrete predictions

on how that's gonna play knowing that we have this cap, the number ahead of time a couple of years. I think we'll have to see how that all plays out, but interesting for sure. What about getting these numbers before the trade deadline? Do you see it affecting your trade deadline or the way the league operates in general? I don't know if it's gonna have a big impact.

I guess the only way it would really matter at the deadline is if players you were looking to acquire had multiple years on their deals and now you know what the cap is moving up to so you might be more comfortable. But beyond that, I'm not sure that this announcement really impacts this trade deadline. So Stan, this is your first year in Edmonton. You take over a team that goes to the finals last year. You get there and you get to see them every day like you mentioned. Is there anybody on

your roster, anybody within the organization that surprised you, good or bad, from a scenario where you're like, geez, I didn't realize that about that person? Well, I mean, I guess Connor and Leon, just when you get to see them up close, like obviously I knew they were amazing players, but when you watch them each day and you see the impact that they make every game, it's really fun to see. I'm so fortunate to have a chance to get to know them. They're such driven leaders as well, so I can't say enough about the impact they have. I guess the player maybe you learn to appreciate even more would probably be Eichholm. He's been probably our most effective defenseman in every situation.

And Darnell's had a really great season for us. I know watching him from afar, I didn't know him either, but I think our defense probably doesn't get enough recognition for how well we've played as a group. And that was, when I first started, that was all I heard about, is their defense isn't strong enough. And you look at where we're at in the league as far as defending and the metrics on how we play as a team that it's not all on the defense move I think you know sometimes team defense can be the way that your five players on the ice work in concert with each other but I think

back to your question I mean Ek is such a strong player for us. You know, he and Bouchard are really dangerous offensively when they're on the ice with our top line. He really is a true five-man unit. And then he's our number one PK. And you know, Eki does it all. So I know, obviously I had a chance to play against him all those years when he was in Nashville and I was in Chicago and I knew he was a really good player.

I think I have an even greater appreciation now for what he brings to the table. Hey Stan, your counterpart down the road in Calgary made a big trade yesterday and he was joking at the press conference that he'd been getting chirped in public about the need to improve the team and the fans were on him. You're semi-new to a Canadian market. What's your experience been with interacting with the Rabbit fan base on the other side of the battle of Alberta? Yeah, it's true. I mean, the fans are so passionate here, which is fantastic. I mean the knowledge they have of our team and the NHL just at large, you can see it. It's really impressive and that's fun. That's what you want. At the end of the day, when you have a team that

like ours that has been a competitive team for a while then the fans are they're very engaged and they're they're committed to your team and you can see the passion and not just the fans that come every night to watch the games but around town like they know all of our players they know all their backgrounds they know what's going on around the league and you know you wouldn't want it any way. I think it's it's certainly a fun environment to be around and uh... I love it.

Stan, in terms of the potential for chirping in the streets, like Dave just referenced in Calgary, about making deals, I mean I'm sure you get that from time to time, someone's willing to tell you what they think you should acquire come the trade deadline. But I'm curious what you would describe as a successful trade deadline for you and the Oilers. That's a good question. I think it can look a couple different ways.

I mean, we certainly have a good group here and we wouldn't be in this position if we were really lacking in one particular area. I think it's trying to find maybe some other options for our team so that, because when everyone's healthy and we're playing on top of our game, you know, we're a really strong team. We've got the good special teams,

our goalies have played well. But then when you look at the other side of it is you're not always healthy and you're not always playing your best. Not everybody's always on top of their game the whole season. There's peaks and valleys and when that happens, you want to have some other options for your coaches to work with. So I would say it's probably looking at if we didn't have everybody going at the same time, what elements would be able to – what could we bring in that would help us.

And that's what our focus is going to be over the next five weeks here, heading into the deadline. So continuing to monitor our team's performance and we played really well since it was a slow start to our season back in October. But once, from early November till now, we've done a lot of good things and we've shown we can win some different ways,

whether it's high scoring games, low scoring games, special teams, goal-attending. We've had flashes of all of that, so I think it shows that we have some versatility. But adding some new players, it would be what elements do we want, whether it's a forward or a defenseman. Those are things that We've had meetings, you know a couple weeks ago. We've identified a number of different players that we think

Could add something to that and now We want to see which of those players are available, but we also want to see how we perform And then that'll probably push us in one direction or the other as we get closer to the deadline. Well it'll be your first experience with the Leafs in town and it's going to be something tomorrow. There's going to be a lot of Leaf fans there. I'm sure you're aware of that, Stan.

It should be a great game. We're looking forward to it here in Toronto. Enjoy it out there in Edmonton and thank you for doing this. Yeah, thanks. It was good to talk to you and I look forward to the here in Toronto. Enjoy it out there in Edmonton and thank you for doing this. Yeah thanks it was it was good to talk to you and I look forward to the game tomorrow. You got it. Stan Bowman the GM of the Oilers.