As the calendar turns, Boxing Day heralds the commencement of two beloved annual hockey events: the Spengler Cup in Davos, Switzerland, and the IIHF World Junior Championship, which is being hosted this year in Gothenberg, Sweden. The Spengler Cup features European professional club teams alongside Canada, and as a result of its 6-day duration culminating on New Year’s Eve, it has been designated as the 2023 edition. Conversely, the World Juniors will extend until January 5th, making it the 2024 version.
Of the two events, the World Junior Championship garners greater attention, particularly in Canada. Understandably, ardent fans of teams such as the Edmonton Oilers are more eager to witness the future prospects of the team at the World Juniors rather than past players at the Spengler Cup.
Regrettably, the WJC2024 will not feature a single future Oilers prospect. This is due to the prerequisite that in order to participate in the World Juniors, a prospect must first be drafted. This draft requirement serves as an indicator of a team’s recent drafting record. Only players from the last two drafts who will celebrate their birthdays in 2004 or later are still eligible for the U-20 event.
According to the draft site FC Hockey, 101 drafted players are set to take part in this season’s event, with Buffalo and Arizona leading the way with 7 each. This is unsurprising given the plethora of draft picks that both clubs have accumulated in recent times. Conversely, only two NHL clubs, the Colorado Avalanche and the Edmonton Oilers, will not be represented at WJC2024.
The absence of these two clubs is to be expected, as they have traded away a significant number of draft picks, particularly in the last two drafts, in their pursuit of the Stanley Cup. Each organization was limited to just 7 draft picks over the two-year period, with only 2 of those selections falling within the first three rounds.
The results speak for themselves. While the Colorado Avalanche have achieved success by leveraging trades involving future assets to acquire key players who played pivotal roles in their Stanley Cup campaign in 2022, the Edmonton Oilers have aimed for playoff runs with less success thus far.
In summary, of the four players drafted by the Oilers, all are ineligible to participate in the current U-20 event, three due to age and one due to nationality. Furthermore, only three of these drafted players remain in the system, all of whom were selected below the #150 pick, representing the “faint hope” section of the draft.
The Oilers have adopted a strategy of trading picks in the first four rounds from the last two years, resulting in only one draft pick remaining from that timeframe. While this approach has drawn criticism, it exemplifies the team’s willingness to leverage future assets to address immediate roster needs and salary cap constraints.
While not all of these moves have yielded the desired results, some have been successful, with the trade involving Mattias Ekholm being the most notable. Nevertheless, the Oilers’ recent performance has been lacklustre, with the team currently ranked 27th in the league by points and 23rd by percentage.
It is evident that the high cost of going “all in” has not produced the desired outcomes for the Oilers. The team’s approach of sacrificing future assets for immediate gains has come under scrutiny, and only time will tell if this strategy will pay off in the long run.