Edmonton Oilers try 'drastic reset' on veteran winger but it's not that simple

The Edmonton Oilers pushed the ‘drastic reset’ button on Trent Frederic, making him a healthy scratch for Sunday’s game against Vegas, this after Frederic, 27, signed an eight-year deal at $3.85 million per year this past summer.

A drastic reset for a monumental problem. Will it work? I doubt it. Something more is needed.

Frederic had already been bounced down from the top line to the bottom line this season due to his ineffectual play, a demotion representing an extremely clear and drastic measure. It’s hard to imagine that this latest scratching will provide Frederic with needed motivation for change if the repeated demotions did not. Nonetheless, that’s the hope of Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch.

Asked by TSN’s Ryan Rishaug about the “drastic measure” of this healthy scratch after the Vegas game, Knoblauch told reporters, “Yeah, very drastic measure. I believe Trent’s gonna come back to the lineup and be a big part of our team moving forward, whether that’s the next game or the week down the road, whatever it is. But I think it’s really important that Trent has a reset just to step away.”

Knoblauch compared the reset to players who have struggled in the regular season, then starting afresh in the playoffs. “Guys have underperformed during the regular season, but the first game of playoffs, it’s a new season, and then they’re fantastic. And it’s just the fact that they can see the scoring (charts), and everyone’s got zeros across the board, and it’s like a new season. So I think with Trent — and I’m not sure he comes in next game — but eventually he’ll be back in the lineup. And it’s he needs a little bit of a break, find his game and come back, because I think he has a lot to offer this team.”

A high ankle sprain knocked Frederic out of the 2024-25 regular season on February 25th, just before the NHL trade deadline. Edmonton GM Stan Bowman went ahead and traded a second and a fourth round pick and prospects Max Wanner and Shane LaChance to get Frederic and have half his salary retained. It was a hefty price, but Frederic wasn’t ready to play until the final regular season game. He then played all 22 playoff games.

But Frederic has been Edmonton’s weakest winger since he arrived here, both in the 2025 playoffs and the 2025-26 regular season.

In the 2025 playoffs, he had the lowest rate of any Oilers winger when it comes to chipping in on goals, half as low as the next lowest player. When it came to making major contributions to Grade A shots he had a lower rate than every other winger save for Conor Brown.

As for defensive play, when it came to making mistakes on Grade A shots, he had the highest rate of any Oilers winger in the playoffs.

Bowman signed him after his poor playoff performance to his new deal, but his weak play has continued. Indeed, Frederic’s low level of play on offence and defence has gotten worse this year. He’s leaking slightly more Grade A shots against at even strength. He’s the worst regular winger on the team in this regard, and the same goes for his high rate of mistakes on goals against.

He’s got just two goals and one assist in 36 games, and his rate of chipping in on Grade A shots for at even strength has decreased from his already low level in the playoffs.

Are we to believe that benching the poor man — under siege now from fans decrying his performance but especially his contract — is going to fix him? Will succeed in resetting him?

I doubt the issue with Frederic is motivation or effort. Much has been made of his high ankle sprain last year and how he wasn’t recovered enough to play well in the playoffs, and how it still could be holding him back. In this regard, we’ve seen evidence around Frederic’s decreasing maximum skating speed and decreasing number of fast speed bursts for the past five years.

When it comes to speed bursts over 20 miles per hour, Frederic averaged 1.37 per game in his rookie season but is now down to 1.06 per game. But last season before his injury he had dropped to 1.14 per game, down from the 66th percentile for regular NHL forwards in Frederic’s rookie year to the 53rd percentile last year.

When it comes to max speed, Frederic was in the 78th percentile in his rookie year but he’s dropped to below the 50th percentile this year and he was below the 50th percentile last regular season year as well.

Rishaug asked Knoblauch if there might be some lingering impact from Frederic’s ankle injury still holding him back.

Knoblauch gave a long and winding answer that amounted to him being uncertain on this topic, or perhaps unwilling to spill the beans. “I don’t know if it’s fair for me to say that he’s 100% over it,” the coach said. “I know he’s cleared (to play)… I shouldn’t say that it’s not bothering him, but from what I know he is fairly healthy. But maybe there are some side effects to it. But Trent’s a pretty proud guy. I think he plays for a lot of pain, you know, under circumstances. I don’t think there’s pain from this injury, but I don’t think it’s fair for me to absolutely say for certain that he’s not having some side effects of that.”

Here are bottom line facts:

1. Frederic has lost a step from his rookie season, and he had evidently lost that step even before he got injured late last Feburary, and both his offensive and defensive play are the worst of any Oilers regular and have been since his first game here.

2. Frederic represents a massive eight-year investment for the Oilers that they can’t easily get out of, if they can get out of it at all.

3. At his best, Frederic was a much better two-way player and physical force. The Oilers could use that player. They have tried to ratchet up Frederic’s motivation, to “reset” him, by playing him less and now by benching him.

It strikes me that the real key here is figuring out why Frederic has lost a step at the relatively young age of 27 and to put him in an intensive rehab program to get back that step. If he’s faster, if he regains the speed he had as a rookie, he can still live up to that eight-year contract.

I doubt there’s any short term reset that will work. But until Frederic is one of Edmonton’s 12 best forwards, he should continue to sit. If that means he plays little the rest of the year, so be it. What’s critical for him is to rehab, to get his speed back, not for him to play, certainly not at the level he’s playing at now.

But one step at a time, I suppose. Knoblauch will try the reset, Frederic will try to play better. If that plan fails, perhaps a more detailed rehab plan will be adopted.

At the Cult of Hockey

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