Edmonton Oilers suffer setback in their crease after latest report

Edmonton's telling number isn't 11 - it's his contract.

Wheeler, The Athletic's prospect writer, had Levi third overall in 2022. He slid to fifth in 2024, seventh in 2025, and now sits 11th, outside the top ten for the first time.

Read as a talent verdict, that looks like a player fading. Read as what it actually tracks, it's something else entirely.

The surface case against Levi is real enough. His nine NHL games in 2024-25 produced a .872 save percentage, and he did not appear in the league at all last year.

A prospect ranking rewards NHL trajectory, and Levi's trajectory never got a runway. Buffalo stacked Alex Lyon, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Colten Ellis ahead of him, so a 24-year-old with clear pedigree spent all of last season in Rochester.

His AHL work held up while the ranking fell. Across three seasons he owns a .914 save percentage and 64 wins, numbers that say buried, not broken.

Even Wheeler still bets on him, writing that Levi is more than a No. 3 and should take a step in Edmonton.

So Edmonton bought low. The trade cost them only the gap between a 2028 third-round pick and a seventh, for a goalie carrying an $812,500 cap hit.

Look at the crease around him.

Frederik Andersen turns 37 in October on a one-year deal, and Tristan Jarry posted some of the league's worst metrics after landing in Edmonton last winter.

That makes Levi the only Oiler goalie with age and cost control on his side. Stan Bowman and Mike Babcock will open with three netminders, but two of them have no future past next summer.

Wheeler's list says faller.

Edmonton's timeline says the opposite - the cheapest, youngest option is the one worth betting on.

Also read on House Of Hockey :
The first face of two franchises has sadly passed away: Remembering Eddie Joyal