Oilers 2021 NHL Draft Preview: Will Edmonton pick a goalie in Round 1?

Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland discusses the team's draft scenarios and their positional preference with the 20th pick in the NHL Draft.

EDMONTON — Here is what we know about the Edmonton Oilers and the 2021 NHL Draft:

The Oilers hold the 19th overall pick, and they’d better not blow it. Because they do not pick again until No. 116, in the fourth round.

Edmonton’s second rounder went to Detroit in the disastrous Andreas Athanasiou deal, while their third rounder lies with Calgary as a still-confusing NHL ruling on the 20-goal condition of the James Neal for Milan Lucic trade. (Neal did not score 20 goals.)

And their fifth-round pick? In Ottawa’s hands, courtesy a deadline trade for Tyler Ennis.

So the Oilers go to this virtual draft with picks in the first, fourth, sixth (two) and seventh rounds. And that lack of inventory could shape the way Ken Holland approaches draft day.

So will the fact he is well-heeled in up-and-coming defencemen — Evan Bouchard, Philip Broberg, Dmitri Samorukov and a few others — while relatively on volume in the forwards department.

“We probably won’t draft a defenceman. Probably,” Holland said on Thursday. “If things go the way we think they’re going to go, we’ll probably take a forward.”

Or a goalie, a wish that Holland would never tip his fellow GMs on.

We believe that if Edmonton Oil Kings goalie Sebastien Cossa is still there at No. 19, the Oilers will take him. If not — and depending who is still on the board — we could see Holland dealing down to a mid-20s pick, and accruing a third-round pick in the deal.

Or what about Arizona, which has no first round pick but three in the second round? Is there a deal there for Holland to land a player, or dump a Mikko Koskinen contract? Perhaps.

Anyhow, we’ll go ahead on the basis that the Oilers will take a player at No. 19, their deepest first-rounder since taking Kailer Yamamoto at No. 22 in 2017 and only the second time they’ve selected lower than 14th since 2009. Here are a few names to watch for:

Draft Picks:

EDM 1 (19th), EDM 4 (116th), EDM 6 (180th), PIT 6 (186th), EDM 7 (212th)

Potential Round 1 Targets

Sebastien Cossa, goalie, Edmonton Oil Kings: Cossa is six-foot-six and plays right under the noses of the Oilers brass in Edmonton. He and Swede Jesper Wallstedt as close to franchise goalies as the draft has seen in years — since Carter Hart? — and due to Cossa’s Nov. 21 birth date, he can play for your AHL team in the 2022-23 season. If Holland has a chance to grab a guy who could be Connor Hellebuyck or Andrei Vasilevskiy, we bet he takes it.

Autu Raty, centre, Oulu Karpat: Raty plummeted on the draft board, from a top-five guy to somewhere in the low 20s, after being left off the Finnish world junior team last year. But there is something in buying a depleted asset if you think it can be rehabbed. And adding another Finn from Oulu to play alongside Jesse Puljujarvi one day does have some symmetry — again if whatever caused Raty’s stock to fall can be corrected.

Fyodor Svechkov, centre/left wing, Lada Togliatti: Svechkov made an impression at the under-18 worlds when he centred two under-age wingers on what became perhaps Russia’s best line. He is what you want in a Russian centre: excellent skills, skates well, and is said to have good on-ice awareness.

Last year’s first pick: Dylan Holloway, LW, U. Wisconsin

Edmonton couldn’t be much happier with what they saw out of Holloway’s 19-year-old season, as the six-foot-one winger put up 35 points in 23 games as a sophomore and had a pretty good world juniors for Canada as well. He wanted to turn pro, but broke a bone in his hand down the stretch at Wisconsin and was unable to get into any games in Bakersfield.

He’ll turn pro this season, and although we expect to see him play out a full AHL season, there are some who predict a January call-up for a player who is big enough to compete at the NHL right now, if his skills can keep up.

Organizational Needs:

There is no question that the Oilers organizational strength lies on the blueline. And their weakness is up front.

As we mentioned, 21-year-old Bouchard is expected to play as a full-time NHLer this season, on a right side that includes 24-year-old Ethan Bear. On the left side, the six-foot-three Broberg (20) will turn pro at Bakersfield this season. He’ll be joined by Samorukov (six-foot-three, 200 lbs.), who has an AHL and a KHL season under his belt.

So the Oilers require some forwards to add to a prospect pool headed by Holloway, Rafael Lavoie and Carter Savoie. And even though there might be a starter among goalies Ilya Konovalov, Olivier Rodrigue and Stuart Skinner, Cossa could be the trump card this evening.

They’ll go with forwards all the way through if they spend their 19th overall on a goalie. Edmonton needs to stock the cupboards up front.

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