Patrik Laine is still unsigned heading into Tuesday, and the Edmonton Oilers are the latest team being floated as a potential landing spot for him.
Nothing here is close to a done deal. There's no confirmed report of active talks between Laine and Edmonton, and that distinction matters.
NHL insider Pierre LeBrun has reported that Laine attracted real league-wide interest and could sign a performance-bonus-heavy deal at a low cap hit.
Laine's resume still jumps off the page. He has 224 goals and 422 points across 537 regular-season games, with a career-high 44 goals back in 2017-18 with Winnipeg.
He's a seven-time 20-goal scorer, and he's added eight goals and 17 points in 26 career playoff appearances.
The recent stretch is messier. Laine scored 20 goals and 33 points in 52 games with Montreal in 2024-25, with 15 of those goals coming on the power play.
Then 2025-26 fell apart fast. One assist in five games before a core-muscle injury ended his season after October 16 and required surgery, leaving him with just 75 games played over three years.
Draisaitl already owns the spot Laine wants
Here's the problem nobody's talking about enough. Laine does his best work from the left faceoff circle, setting up his one-timer.
That's Leon Draisaitl's office. Edmonton isn't benching a $14 million power-play weapon to make room for a reclamation project, no matter how hard Laine can shoot it.
So if this happens, Laine isn't walking into a featured power-play role. He's walking into a fight for five-on-five minutes and secondary special-teams time.
The Oilers enter this stretch at 41-30-11, sitting on 93 points and riding a one-game winning streak with a 6-2-2 mark over their last ten. They're not desperate.
Connor McDavid and Draisaitl are already carrying a combined $26.5 million cap hit. Adding Laine even at $850,000 means finding a roster spot, not just cap space.
That's the appeal, honestly. A one-year deal in that range is close to a rounding error for a team built the way Edmonton is built.
Would I take that swing? Sure, at $850,000 with bonuses attached. Once that number creeps toward $2 million guaranteed, the math stops making sense for a team that needs flexibility at the deadline.
Other reporting has linked Laine more directly to the Islanders, Kings, Lightning, Flames and Wild, and Edmonton didn't even make Sportsnet's list of known suitors.
So is this a real Oilers pursuit or just smart connecting-the-dots by people who know Edmonton needs another shooter? Right now, it's closer to the second one.
Laine's previous deal paid him $8.7 million a year. Whatever comes next won't look anything like that number, and it shouldn't.
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The bigger question isn't whether Laine fits on paper. It's whether a player who's played 75 games in three seasons can still be trusted with a real role anywhere.
Should the Oilers take a flyer on Patrik Laine this summer?
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