New details reveal Oilers and Canucks are preparing a monster trade
Edmonton's offseason just got more interesting, with Jake DeBrusk floated as a buy-low target who could land in the Oilers' top six this summer.
The math is simple. Connor McDavid finished with 138 points. Leon Draisaitl chipped in 97 in 65 games. After that, the scoring gets thin fast.
DeBrusk's 2025-26 numbers tell two stories. He scored 23 goals and 42 points in 81 games. He also went minus-31 on a Vancouver team that finished 25-49-8.
That record matters. Vancouver ranked 32nd overall with a 216-316 goal differential, so every Canuck not named Quinn Hughes carried the same anchor.
Look closer at the form he's flashing. Over his last 10 games, DeBrusk popped seven goals and went a -3 rating. Over his last five, four goals, zero assists, even.
That's a striker getting hot on a sinking ship. The question is whether Stan Bowman wants to bet on a 29-year-old Edmonton kid signed at $5.5 million through 2030-31 with a no-movement clause.
How DeBrusk could rework Edmonton's stale bottom six
The Oilers finished 41-30-11. Their problem wasn't the top of the lineup. It was the middle. Trent Frederic posted just four goals in 74 games at $3.85 million.
A bottom-six refresh starts there. Slotting DeBrusk on a second line frees Frederic from minutes that clearly didn't fit, and gives Edmonton a 20-plus goal threat at a number Darnell Nurse's $9.25 million cap hit makes impossible to ignore.
The power play angle is where this gets loud. Of DeBrusk's 23 goals, 19 came on the man advantage. That's a specialist's stat line, not a complete one.
Edmonton's PP1 is already among the league's most feared. Dropping a finisher with that profile onto PP2, or bumping him up if a star tweaks something, is the kind of redundancy contenders crave.
The head-to-head story this season was lopsided. Edmonton went 3-1-0 against Vancouver, including a 6-0 win in January and a 6-1 win on April 16. The Canucks have zero leverage. Their L10 sits at 4-6-0 and Adam Foote inherits a rebuild.
That's why DeBrusk's no-movement clause becomes the asset, not the obstacle. If Edmonton is the only destination he'll waive for, Vancouver takes what Vancouver can get.
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Is a third-round pick and a depth piece really enough? Probably not, but the floor is lower than it should be for a 23-goal winger.
The bigger risk is the minus-31, the empty assist column lately, and the fact that he's been a healthy scratch this year. Buy low always comes with a reason.
Edmonton's window is now. McDavid won't carry plus-17 forever, and Bowman has spent a year telling fans help is coming. DeBrusk would be a real swing, not a press release.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 23, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Josh Anderson | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Phillip Danault | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Mark Jankowski | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Eric Robinson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Jackson Blake | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| Jakub Dobes | - | - | - | |
| Noah Dobson | - | - | - | |
| Jake Evans | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||