Oilers quietly signed one of Finland's hottest forwards
The Edmonton Oilers added a Finnish scoring punch Monday afternoon, signing forward Aku Raty to a one-year, two-way contract worth $850,000.
Stan Bowman's front office moved early in the offseason on a 24-year-old right shot who just finished as the top scorer in Liiga's Karpat lineup.
Raty posted 57 points (20 goals, 37 assists) in 51 games this past season. That total tied for seventh across the entire Finnish league.
He's a $850,000 swing on a roster that already eats heavy money up top. McDavid at $12.5 million. Draisaitl at $14 million. Bouchard at $10.5 million.
That kind of cap structure forces Edmonton to find cheap value in the middle and bottom six. A Liiga leading scorer at league minimum is exactly the bet you take.
The NHL résumé is thin. One game, on April 17, 2024, an assist against these same Oilers as a member of the Arizona Coyotes. That's it.
Two-way structure tells you where Aku Raty actually fits
The two-way tag matters. Raty isn't being promised a top-nine job. He's being asked to earn it through camp, with Bakersfield as the backup plan.
His AHL ledger over two seasons reads 69 points (21 goals, 48 assists) in 120 games split between Tucson and Rockford. Useful, not dominant.
So why bring him over now? Because Edmonton's depth chart screams for cheap forward bodies who can actually score. The bottom six was a problem all year.
The Oilers finished 41-30-11 for 93 points, 14th overall, second in the Pacific. A goal differential of plus-13 on a roster carrying that kind of star wattage is a flashing red light.
Bowman has spent the spring trying to fix it. Raty is a low-stakes piece of that puzzle. If he sticks, you've found a 24-year-old scoring forward on a minimum AAV.
If he doesn't? You sent him down without burning a roster spot or real cap room. The downside is basically zero.
What you want to watch in September is how he handles NHL pace and the smaller ice. Liiga numbers don't always translate. Plenty of Finnish scorers have flamed out in this exact spot.
But the price point gives the Oilers room to be patient. And in a market where every NHL contract feels overpaid, a Liiga scoring title for $850K is one of the cleaner gambles you'll see this week.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 24, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| William Karlsson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mark Stone | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Kaedan Korczak | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Devon Toews | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jack Drury | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nazem Kadri | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Keegan Kolesar | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Gabriel Landeskog | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Dylan Coghlan | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Parker Kelly | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nathan MacKinnon | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Manson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Martin Necas | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Shea Theodore | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| Brent Burns | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||