The Oilers decision to claim Alec Regula off waivers Wednesday could turn out to be a shrewd move.
The 24-year-old has shown promise during his time in the American Hockey League, scoring 16 goals and 77 points in 163 games there, and while his brief time in the NHL has been just that with only 22 games, there’s another element of intrigue in the blue liner: that he was once a teammate — and defensive partner — of Evan Bouchard with the OHL’s London Knights.
While the Oilers drafted Bouchard 10th overall in 2018, Regula went 67th to the then-Ken Holland-led Detroit Red Wings.
As noted by The Athletic’s Daniel Nugent-Bowman, Regula played on the left side of that pairing, despite being a right-handed shot. Nugent-Bowman also noted how there will likely be another roster move coming in short order for the Oilers.
“(Regula being claimed) also means they’re back in LTIR and are no longer accruing cap space,” Nugent-Bowman wrote. “This could open the door for a subsequent roster move in the near future because Oilers management has been consistent in its desire to accrue cap space ahead of the trade deadline in March.”
The options are fairly limited for the Oilers, given they’ve had a short roster this season. As it stands today, there are essentially two options for the Oilers, and they involve placing either Travis Dermott, the team’s only extra skater, someone who hasn’t played since November 19th, or Regula on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors.
While Viktor Arvidsson skated Monday for the first time since getting injured, it’s still unknown as to when he could return to the lineup. Since he’s on the injured reserve, not the long-term injured reserve, his cap hit is still on the Oilers’ books, and therefore the team won’t need to make a roster move to have him back on the active roster.
What Arvidsson’s return will do is create internal competition in the forward ranks. The Oilers’ bottom six has been stagnant offensively, and Arvidsson would more likely than not return to the second line alongside Leon Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin, bumping Kasperi Kapanen into the bottom-six, or the press box. But Kapanen has looked solid, though unspectacular, and has remained in Edmonton’s top-six since arriving.
Nonetheless, the next few days will be interesting to see how the team gets out of their LTIR pool dip.
