The Edmonton Oilers have taken the full weight of the backlash for signing Alex Formenton – a petition demanding they terminate the contract has passed 65,000 signatures, and roughly 100 protesters gathered outside Rogers Place before his first pre-season appearance. According to insider Darren Dreger, Edmonton wasn’t the only team willing to make that call.
Formenton was one of five players from Canada’s 2018 world junior team charged with sexual assault, all of whom were acquitted in July 2025, and he was the only one Hockey Canada reinstated immediately. Most speculation before the signing centered on a professional tryout rather than a guaranteed contract.
Alex Formenton chose the Oilers
Speaking on The Nielson Show, Dreger explained why Formenton ended up with a real deal instead.
“There were other teams that wanted to sign Alex Formenton: Carolina Hurricanes, Vegas Golden Knights, I was told, had considerable interest in Formenton, and Edmonton,” Dreger said.
With multiple clubs prepared to guarantee money, a tryout was never going to be necessary. What decided it, per Dreger, had little to do with hockey.
“Formenton chose Edmonton mostly because of his history with Evan Bouchard. They are really good buddies, and more obviously, the time he spent with D.J. Smith when D.J. was in Ottawa,” Dreger said.
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Smith is now Edmonton’s associate coach, hired in June to work under Mike Babcock after running the Ottawa bench from 2019 to 2023. That stretch covered Formenton’s best NHL season, 2021-22, when he put up 18 goals and 32 points in 79 games while averaging 15:27 a night – and notably scored five of those goals shorthanded. Nobody in the Oilers organization knows the player better.
Vegas had already signed Carter Hart, another member of that 2018 team, while Carolina is the reigning Stanley Cup champion.
He signed a one-year, $850,000 contract, and scored on a breakaway in the pre-season win over Winnipeg that has since become its own story.
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