- Stan Bowman says the Oilers are not panicking over four players missing training camp
- Matt Savoie will be back well before Frederik Andersen, and nowhere near half a season
- Read below for what Bowman said about Mattias Janmark playing hurt all last year
Stan Bowman is not sweating the pile of injuries in Edmonton.
The Oilers general manager spoke with Sportsnet’s Mark Spector by phone from his home outside Chicago and was asked how worried the front office is about losing four players before camp even opens.
“No, it’s not great when guys are hurt. But internally, we’re not nearly as concerned or nervous about it as the fans or the media. We’re not worried about this. This is part of the sport, and we’ll work our way through it.”
Edmonton announced Wednesday that Matt Savoie, Frederik Andersen, Mattias Janmark and Alec Regula will all miss training camp. The release came with no return dates attached to any of the four names.
Bowman filled in some of that blank space. He made clear the two offseason training injuries are not on the same scale.
“Matt’s going to miss less time than Freddie. Also, Freddie’s older. So we’re probably not going to be pushing the envelope, trying to probably give him enough time. I don’t want to put a timeline on it, but it’s not like he’s going to miss half a season or anything like that.”
Losing Savoie still hurts. The 22-year-old put up 18 goals and 19 assists in 82 games as a rookie and was lined up to start the year on the top line with Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman.
Andersen is the bigger unknown. Edmonton signed him to steady a crease that leaked all last spring, and he has been unavailable often over the past few seasons between injuries and a blood clot issue. Tristan Jarry and Devon Levi will open the season as the tandem.
Janmark is the one Bowman sounded heaviest about. The 33-year-old winger had surgery late last season and still is not ready to go.
“He’s been playing through a lot of pain. Honestly, he knows he played too long with it last year, waiting to see if he could stick it out. He’s dealing with a lot, and he’s not ready to start the season. It is what it is.”
All of that clears runway for somebody. Bowman pointed to Isaac Howard, Quinn Hutson and Josh Samanski as the internal candidates, then added AHL veterans Aku Raty and Eduards Tralmaks as camp bodies who now get a longer look than they were ever going to get.
Money is the other wrinkle. Bowman went into August talking about the value of holding cap space, and PuckPedia now projects Edmonton with under $2MM of room once the injured group is accounted for.
Camp opens next month, and that is when Bowman said a real timeline on Savoie should show up.
