Edmonton Oilers fans have been burned by false hope before around this time of year.

Remember the Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson day? We were all ready to anoint Jeff Jackson as the best GM in the league.

There have been plenty of other examples throughout the Connor McDavid era of this organization taking hard swings on July 1 and falling flat on their rear ends.

This time around, it does feel a bit different, though.

Of course, you could just call me a sucker for falling for the same trap that we all seem to fall for every summer, but this year’s moves by GM Stan Bowman don’t feel overly flashy — they just feel necessary.

He seemed to check a lot of things off his to-do list without having to act desperate and without killing the Oilers’ ability to continue to add going forward.

Let’s start with his pre-free-agency activity.

At first, there was some hesitancy around the Jason Dickinson and Connor Murphy contracts, but after watching what players like Boone Jenner, Colton Sissons, Vincent Desharnais, and Jacob Trouba got, those deals suddenly look a lot better.

Keep in mind that as the years go on, these types of middle-of-the-lineup players are just going to get more and more expensive. What we saw this year was that........

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