The Edmonton Oilers will enter the 2026-27 season with five defencemen firmly locked into opening‑night roles: Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, Connor Murphy, Jake Walman, and Ryan Shea. That leaves one spot on the blue line still up for grabs, assuming the team sticks with the traditional 12F/6D setup.

Three players are expected to battle for that final spot: Ty Emberson, Spencer Stastney, and Shakir Mukhamadullin.

Emberson, acquired from the San Jose Sharks in the summer of 2024, is heading into his third consecutive season with Edmonton after spending most of the past two years on the third pair. Spencer Stastney was traded to the Oilers from the Nashville Predators last December and suited up for 30 games with Edmonton in 2025-26, though he spent long stretches as their seventh defender and didn’t play a single game after March 19. Finally, Mukhamadullin was acquired by the Oilers as part of the Darnell Nurse trade with the Sharks on July 1.

Without further ado, let’s dive into these players, making a case for each of them and breaking down who should ultimately claim that spot.

What is the case for Ty Emberson?

Defensively, I have felt that Ty Emberson has been rather underrated and underappreciated by fans. Here is a look at how EvolvingHockey’s WAR model has rated his defensive impacts over each of the past three seasons:

EvolvingHockey’s WAR model attempts to evaluate defensive play by measuring a player’s impact on suppressing quality scoring chances, isolating for factors such as quality of teammates, quality of competition, zone starts, and more. This process is by no means perfect, but the outputs are valuable with proper interpretation. And there’s little doubt that Emberson’s outputs here are superb.

Put simply, Emberson’s EVD (Even-Strength Defence) WAR per 60 has ranked higher than 99 per cent, 81 per cent and 91 per cent of defencemen over each of these past three seasons respectively. That is outstanding.

Of course, these results were achieved in a rather sheltered environment, which should obviously be considered when making comparisons to defenders with tougher workloads, but this clearly shows that Emberson has excelled defensively in a third-pair role, which is the spot that he is battling to win.

Emberson is a very well-rounded defender. His main strength comes with his in-zone defending, as he is excellent........

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