Two of the most underwhelming performers for the Edmonton Oilers in the 2025-26 season were Trent Frederic and Tristan Jarry.

General manager Stan Bowman traded for both, and extended Frederic to an eight-year contract last offseason, which hasn’t yet paid dividends. These two moves may be the biggest big swing and misses so far in his almost two year tenure as GM.

As Bowman admitted in his exit interview, the entire organization will be evaluated, including his own job and coach Kris Knoblauch’s after a disappointing year where the team seemed to lack cohesion and couldn’t generate momentum.

In over 100 games now as an Oiler, Frederic has scored a combined five goals and 11 points, regular season and playoffs. Thought to be a grinder built for the playoffs, he’s only shown brief flashes of the physical, power forward brand of hockey he was known for in Boston.

While Bowman said flat out that Frederic didn’t have a good year, he also thinks the Oilers didn’t help him succeed by not finding him a consistent place in the lineup.

“I’ve talked to him about it, and we need him to play better,” said Bowman. “Part of that is on us too. I don’t think we set him up well. We moved him in a bunch of different roles. We started him with Connor and Leon in the beginning of the season, and we moved him around to different lines.

“You have to be able to overcome that as a player, but I think I’ve seen this before with players that sign long contracts. They feel like they have to maybe do something different just to show that they’re a good player, and you end up losing your identity a little bit.”

‘Get to that level sooner’

A long-term ankle injury took some........

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