The Edmonton Oilers have signed forward Mattias Janmark to a one-year contract with an annual average salary of $1.25 million. A depth forward signing, Janmark will give the Oilers a bottom-six forward who can play both wing and center. He has been a useful penalty-killer in his career and posted nine goals and 25 points in 67 games for Vegas this past season.
He’s strong on the power play, and unexceptional at 5v5 but some of that could be attributed to the tougher minutes he was asked to play against the elites of the NHL. He’s a decent forechecker and will be seen as a cheap fourth-liner. This signing doesn’t come with much risk and will create competition in the bottom six.
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Janmark was originally drafted by Ken Holland in 2013 (3rd round) in Detroit and produced a career-best 19-15-34 in the second of his seven NHL seasons. He does have the potential to put up stronger numbers than he did last season. As Jason Gregor of TSN 1260 and Daily Faceoff points out, “Not flashy, but a consistent player. He can kill penalties, won’t hurt you defensively at 5×5 and scores between 20-25 points. He was in the “Bargain Bin” aisle we outlined before free agency began.”
After signing Janmark the Oilers are $694K over the salary cap with 19 players (10F/7D/2G) on their projected 2022-23 roster. With Oscar Klefbom $4.167 million and Mike Smith $2.2 million both expected to be on LTIR, GM Ken Holland effectively jas up to $5.7 million cap space remaining.
Janmark has played a total of 420 regular season NHL games and it’s not clear if this will lead to any more movement from the Oilers to clear out cap space or if it’s meant solely to offer depth at the center and wing positions.
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