Yahoo Sports Oilers Depth Defenceman Pushed Out By New Acquisition
In with the new means out with the old.
After claiming defenceman Alec Regula off waivers from Boston yesterday, the Oilers announced today that they've placed another defenceman, Travis Dermott, on waivers themselves.
The #Oilers have placed defenceman Travis Dermott on waivers.
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 12, 2024
Dermott's days in Edmonton seemed numbered even before the acquisition of Regula. He joined the Oilers in training camp on a PTO, and made the team in a three-way rotation with Ty Emberson and Troy Stecher, beating out offseason signing Josh Brown for the final roster spot.
It didn't take long, however, for Dermott to be relegated to the press box. By the time the calendar flipped to November, Emberson had settled in on the third pair and Stecher had played his way into a timeshare with Brett Kulak, splitting time between the second and third pairs. That left Dermott as the odd man out, with just 10 games played out of a possible 28 this season.
Considering Edmonton's precarious cap situation and Dermott and Stecher's overlapping skillsets, Dermott was always an easy candidate for demotion. It also didn't help that the Oilers have now traded away two left-handed defencemen from their AHL roster, leaving Cam Dineen as the only lefty on Bakersfield's blueline. Dermott will help fix that imbalance if he clears waivers.
It wouldn't be a surprise at all to see Dermott waived, however. The former Maple Leaf, Canuck, and Coyote can still provide some value as a depth defenceman on some defence-needy team that needs a puck-mover and doesn't mind his lack of size.
Dermott was always going to be a stopgap solution in Edmonton. He and Stecher were picked up because they could ably fill in on the blueline until the Oilers accrued enough cap space to go after a bigger fish at the trade deadline. But the Oilers pounced when a big righty with connections to the franchise became available, and Dermott was deemed expendable. Such is life at the bottom of an NHL roster.
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