The Edmonton Oilers are done kicking the can down the road on their blue line. On Sunday, the team announced contract extensions for defensemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Spencer Stastney, locking in a pair of younger blueliners who arrived via separate trades this season.
Mukhamadullin got two years at an average annual value of $1.75 million. Stastney, meanwhile, signed a one-year deal worth $1.525 million. Both players were scheduled to become restricted free agents this summer. Now the Oilers have some clarity on their depth chart heading into the 2026-27 season.
Let’s start with Mukhamadullin. He came to Edmonton back on July 1 as part of the trade that sent Darnell Nurse to the San Jose Sharks. That move was a cap dump for the Oilers, sure, but Mukhamadullin isn’t just a throw-in. The 24-year-old left-shot defenseman is 6-foot-4, 200 pounds and he played 50 games for the Sharks last season. He averaged 17:09 of ice time and set career highs with five goals and seven assists for 12 points. He also blocked 63 shots, threw 35 hits and logged 70 minutes on the penalty kill. That’s a pretty solid bottom-pairing profile with some upside.
Originally a first-round pick by the New Jersey Devils in 2020, Mukhamadullin has 83 NHL games under his belt across three seasons with the Sharks. He’s got 22 career points and 34 penalty minutes. The Ufa, Russia native will still be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights when this extension runs out. So if he takes another step, Edmonton could have him locked in at a reasonable number for a while.
Stastney’s Short but Effective Run
Stastney is the older of the two at 26. The Oilers picked him up from the Nashville Predators on Dec. 12 in exchange for a 2027 third-round pick. That kind of midseason trade for a depth defenseman usually flies under the radar, but Stastney made an impact pretty quickly.
He played 30 games with Nashville before the trade, collecting one goal and eight assists. He made his Oilers debut the night after the deal in Toronto and ended up playing 36 games for Edmonton, scoring one goal while averaging 16:02 of ice time. Across both teams, he finished the 2025-26 campaign with career highs in games played (66) and points (10).
The University of Notre Dame product has now played 117 NHL games, producing four goals and 15 assists while averaging 15:52 per game. He’s also blocked 125 shots, racked up 31 takeaways and spent nearly 172 minutes killing penalties. That last number matters for a team that leaned heavily on its top penalty killers last postseason.
One interesting stat: at five-on-five with the Oilers, Stastney and Ty Emberson outscored opponents 8-5 in 225 minutes and controlled 52.7 percent of the expected goal share. Small sample, sure, but it suggests the pairing wasn’t just holding on. That said, Stastney didn’t play a single minute in Edmonton’s six playoff games against the Anaheim Ducks. So the jury’s still out on whether he’s a postseason regular or just a regular season fill-in.
What This Means for the Cap Sheet
After both signings, the Oilers have roughly $5.925 million in salary-cap space with 22 players on their active roster. That’s not a huge number, but it’s more breathing room than a lot of contenders have this time of year. Stastney’s one-year deal means he’ll be an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season. Mukhamadullin will be an RFA with arbitration rights. So the Oilers haven’t committed long-term money to either guy. They’re basically renting cheap years from two guys who might be able to play above their pay grade.
Edmonton’s front office has been aggressive about reshaping the blue line after a few years of cap headaches. This is the kind of quiet work that doesn’t make splashy headlines but keeps the roster flexible.
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