Did Bowman win over Oilers fans? Do they trust Babcock? Oilers survey results, Part 1
In the dog days of the offseason, it’s a good time to get better acquainted with Edmonton Oilers fans.
That goes double for a team entering another Cup-or-bust season under the helm of a controversial bench boss who hasn’t coached an NHL game in nearly seven years. With over 900 responses to our fan survey, respondents expressed a mix of optimism and trepidation regarding Mike Babcock. As to be expected, public opinion of the 63-year-old has yet to crystallize before the Oilers’ Sept. 29 season opener.
Meanwhile, general manager Stan Bowman received a solid report card on his offseason work, including widespread belief that he has improved the blue line. Still, there are concerns over the three-headed goaltending situation, with plenty of skepticism directed toward Tristan Jarry.
Without further delay, here are the results, alongside my analysis. With 17 total questions, I’ve divided it into two parts.
The blowback to Babcock’s hire was swift and deafening back in June, but there is now cautious optimism among Oilers faithful — over two-thirds of respondents are at least somewhat confident in the new bench boss and his track record. There’s certainly a vocal minority who believes his tenure will be an unmitigated disaster, but the majority says he has more trust than the outside noise might suggest. It will be interesting to revisit this question early in the season, when Babcock will have implemented lines and systems and thoroughly communicated his vision for the team.
By a large majority, defence is the name of the game for Oilers fans. The blue line was dismal in the club’s opening-round playoff defeat, allowing an abysmal eight power-play goals on 15 attempts and 26 goals over six games. To that end, Babcock is known for instilling cultures of defensive accountability, and that hasn’t excluded his top point-getters. Nobody should expect a free ride.
Unsurprisingly, depth scoring was the No. 2 issue, a symptom of another Oilers roster that relied too much on its top-heavy approach. Babcock has hinted he may prefer to deploy Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together to reclaim more minutes for the rest of the lineup. Perhaps that gives the bottom-six forwards meaningful minutes to find an offensive rhythm.
Considering some of the early blunders in Bowman’s Oilers tenure, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that much of the fan base is on the fence about his ability to deliver a championship to Edmonton. The loss of Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg via offer sheets in his first summer continues to grow more disheartening as they blossom with the St. Louis Blues while the Oilers remain in search of top-of-the-lineup talent.
Toss in Trent Frederic’s eight-year, $30.8 million contract along with the acquisition of Tristan Jarry and his $5.375 million annual cap hit, and it’s possible to argue Bowman has pushed the Oilers further from Stanley Cup contention with a few simple moves. That said …
There is overwhelming consensus that Bowman had a constructive summer, seemingly restoring some goodwill among fans. He rebuilt the crease, shuffled the blue line and inked Jason Dickinson and Connor Murphy to five-year extensions, all while leaving the team with ample salary-cap flexibility. More than three-quarters of fans gave the GM a B grade or higher for his moves, indicating there is indeed merit to the “Summer of Stan” title. Indeed, there is a noticeable gulf in perception between Bowman’s overall tenure and his more recent work.
Perhaps the crown jewel of Bowman’s summer was wriggling out of Darnell Nurse’s hefty $9.25 million cap hit in a swap with the San Jose Sharks. According to PuckPedia, that gives the Oilers roughly $4.725 million of cap space heading into the season. It’s a level of financial flexibility virtually unheard-of in the McDavid era.
That alone got fans giddy thinking about the high-end rentals the Oilers might be able to pursue with accrued cap space, but the move, in isolation, is not addition by subtraction. According to the largest group of respondents, bringing in depth defenceman Shakir Mukhamadullin and inking free agent Ryan Shea was enough to move the needle in a positive direction. With Mukhamadullin and Shea coming in at a combined $5.75 million, it certainly feels like money better spent.
With three centres hobbled to varying degrees, it comes as no surprise that many fans felt this spring’s first-round exit was a lost cause. The Oilers have historically only been as good as their superstars’ outputs, so injuries to McDavid and Draisaitl spelled doom. In a similar vein, many respondents noted that general fatigue from the regular season plus back-to-back Stanley Cup Final runs was a major factor. Based on those results, it would appear a large contingent of Oil Country is largely forgiving of an early exit.
Still, special teams, goaltending and coaching all faced their share of criticism as well, leading to some major offseason changes.
With that aforementioned cap room, the Oilers could have the flexibility to make their biggest in-season splash since acquiring Mattias Ekholm from the Nashville Predators in 2023. According to respondents, the most pressing need is a middle-six forward to complement the superstars, although several fans made clear their preferred answer would be a top-line game-breaker rather than a secondary piece.
Most interestingly, the second-biggest need was determined to be in net, even after Bowman completely rebuilt the crease with Frederik Andersen and Devon Levi. Clearly, as we will get to below, there is plenty of anxiety about that new rotation.
Several returns to form are in order for the Oilers, and fans say defenceman Jake Walman stands head and shoulders above the rest as the most likely to do so. It’s understandable. He has a strong two-way track record built over several seasons, and a full summer of recovery will distance him from his disastrous, injury-riddled 53-game showing in 2025-26. After spending significant minutes on his off side with fellow lefty Nurse, it bears watching how his new partner — perhaps the steady, stay-at-home Murphy? — affects his play.
As for Trent Frederic, the long-term bet Bowman made on him doesn’t look great after Year 1. That said, Babcock’s arrival allows him a fresh slate. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a glow-up for the winger if he finds a more meaningful role in the system.
In a somewhat damning result, Jarry received less than seven percent of the vote. It’s also not difficult to see why. Goalies are notoriously unpredictable, and their star can often burn out much faster than their skater counterparts. The Oilers hope that isn’t the case for a netminder to whom they’ve committed $10.75 million over the next two seasons.
There may not be much hope in Jarry, but that’s why the Oilers didn’t place all their eggs in one basket. Throw a Stanley Cup-winning netminder into the mix, and suddenly the outlook is much rosier, if still wary. Fears of an injured Andersen, an unproven Levi and an inconsistent Jarry leave several routes to disappointment, but three options could be better than two. That rings even more true if you believe in the recent success of the Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres, each of whom ran steady three-goalie rotations and advanced beyond the first round in 2025-26.
To the surprise of nobody, the goalie with a fresh Stanley Cup engraving seems the best bet to deliver consistent puck-stopping this season. The real question is what type of consistency can be expected from Andersen: a healthy, bona fide starter who can play half the schedule or more, or an injury-plagued goalie who delivers quality starts once per week?
Despite Levi’s limited sample of 39 NHL games, fans were comfortable giving him the upper hand over Jarry, a goalie with several above-average seasons as a big-league starter under his belt. Clearly, recency matters.
What would you like to see in a new Oilers alternate jersey?
We timed this question perfectly, as Fanatics announced Wednesday morning that all 32 NHL teams will be revealing “Hometown Remix” jerseys this season, “inspired by the fans, cities and culture that make each team feel like home.” So we know a new jersey is on the way.
The loudest message from the survey was clear: bring back the copper and dark blue. There is a nostalgia associated with the Oilers’ visual identity from their 2006 Stanley Cup Final run, and it’s perhaps the only other look that is unmistakably Edmonton without simply reproducing their classic orange and blue look. Apart from the colour scheme, the oil rigger logo, first introduced in 1996, was a favourite candidate to adorn the crest. It’s only ever been used as a secondary logo on the shoulder, but there is something appealing about using the blue-collar worker to represent Edmonton in a hometown remix.
Todd McFarlane’s oil drop design of the early 2000s generated a similar wave of affection, as did the “orange crush” uniforms of the early McDavid era, although that was far from universal.
Lastly, some people took the opportunity to get a little weird. There were calls for a dinosaur to represent Alberta’s fossil fuel industry, a donair, West Edmonton Mall, High Level Bridge, a hard hat — and my favourite: “packets of actual crude oil to squirt at opponents.”