Just under a week ago, the Edmonton Oilers made a quiet addition to their roster with a depth forward that went largely unrecognized except by Detroit Red Wings fans.
On July 1, the Oilers signed former Grand Rapids Griffins forward Eduards Tralmaks to a one-year, two-way contract worth $850,000, giving the 29-year-old winger his first real shot at cracking an NHL lineup after years as a career minor leaguer.
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Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman spoke on the move during Monday’s episode of his podcast, 32 Thoughts, pointing to new Oilers head coach Mike Babcock, who won a Stanley Cup with Detroit back in 2008, as the kind of coach who could get the best out of a player with Tralmaks’ skill set.
Friedman suggested Babcock’s track record of developing depth players into legitimate NHL contributors could give Tralmaks a real chance to work his way into a regular role at the game’s highest level, something the Red Wings never gave him during his one year with the franchise.
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Red Wings fans saw Tralmaks at his best last season, when he recorded 26 goals and 16 assists for 42 points in 64 AHL games with Grand Rapids, finishing fourth on a Griffins team that broke several league records during a 51-win campaign in just 72 games.
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Tralmaks did earn emergency recalls and practiced with the Red Wings at times, but he never once cracked the lineup for an actual NHL game, spending his entire tenure in the organization strictly as a minor-league piece.
Tralmaks likely helped his case with his performance at the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, where he was one of the better players in the tournament for Latvia, scoring three goals and adding an assist for a point-per-game average across the country’s four games, with several of those goals proving to be genuine difference-makers.
Now heading to Edmonton, Tralmaks will get an extended look with the Oilers as they aim to finally get over the hump under Babcock after two Western Conference Championships in the last three seasons.
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