With a pair of impressive home victories, 9-4 over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday (Dec. 4) and 6-2 over the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday (Dec. 6), the Edmonton Oilers have currently matched their longest win streak of 2025-26.
Forward Matthew Savoie has been a big part of Edmonton’s recent success. The 21-year-old scored both with the man advantage and while killing a penalty against Seattle and potted the winner against Winnipeg.
Savoie is only the third player under the age of 22 in franchise history to record a power-play goal, short-handed goal, and game-winning goal in a span of two games. The other two are Hall of Famers: Glenn Anderson and Wayne Gretzky.
Edmonton will now look to win three straight games for the first time this season by defeating Savoie’s former team, the Buffalo Sabres, at Rogers Place on Tuesday (Dec. 9).
Oilers Got Positive Grades for Trade
Edmonton acquired Savoie from the Sabres in exchange for forwards Ryan McLeod and Tyler Tullio nearly a year and a half ago, on July 5, 2024. At that time, Edmonton was seen by many as having won the trade.
Related: 2 Reasons Edmonton Oilers Won McLeod-for-Savoie Trade
The ninth overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, Savoie was fresh off winning the 2024 Western Hockey League (WHL) championship as a member of the Moose Jaw Warriors. Then only 20, he had yet to spend a season in the pros and possessed oodles of potential waiting to be realized.
McLeod, the 40th overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, had settled into a bottom-six role with the Oilers. At age 24, he was still relatively young, but wasn’t progressing much, going from nine to 11 to 12 goals over the prior three seasons. Tullio, taken in Round 5 of the 2022 NHL Draft, was projected to be a career minor-leaguer and wasn’t considered a significant component of the trade.
McLeod Had Great First Season in Buffalo
The perception of who won the Oilers-Sabres deal changed a bit last season, not because Savoie floundered, but because McLeod excelled.
Savoie, as largely expected, spent the vast majority of 2024-25 in the American Hockey League (AHL), finishing second on the Bakersfield Condors with 54 points, from 19 goals and 35 assists. The St. Albert product also played four games with the Oilers, recording an assist.
Meanwhile, McLeod had a breakout campaign in Buffalo, smashing all his previous NHL career highs with 20 goals and 33 assists for 53 points, while finishing second on the Sabres with a plus/minus rating of plus-13.
McLeod was one of the lone bright spots in another disappointing season for the Sabres, who missed the playoffs for a 14th consecutive season, and he was rewarded in the offseason when the restricted free agent re-signed with Buffalo on a new four-year, $20 million contract.
(Tullio, for the record, spent all of 2024-25 in the AHL and is no longer part of the Sabres organization, having signed a one-year AHL contract with the Tucson Roadrunners prior to the start of this season.)
Savoie Playing Key Role for Oilers
Two months into the current NHL season, sentiments are changing once again about which team got the better of that July 2024 deal.
After a strong preseason, Savoie began 2025-26 with the Oilers and has quickly become a fixture in Edmonton’s lineup. He’s one of seven Oilers forwards that have suited up for all 29 games, and has slotted in effectively on multiple lines, most recently playing alongside superstar centre Leon Draisaitl and gritty winger Vasily Podkolzin.
Bringing an element of versatility that McLeod doesn’t really possess, Savoie has emerged as one of Edmonton’s top penalty killers. Savoie is second to only Adam Henrique among Oilers forwards with an average of 1:33 short-handed time on ice per game. His ability to kill penalties was particularly crucial for the Oilers when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins recently missed nine games with an injury.
Despite being five inches and 25 pounds smaller than McLeod, the 5-foot-10, 179-pound Savoie plays harder and gets to the net a lot more frequently than the former Oiler. Savoie is also starting to contribute offensively and now sits fifth on the Oilers with six goals. That’s one more goal than has been scored so far by McLeod, who has come back to earth this season: Through 29 games, he has five goals and nine assists for an average of 0.48 points per game, which is much closer to his average output as an Oiler than during 2024-25 in Buffalo.
And while the Oilers are starting to look like Stanley Cup contenders again, the Sabres continue to struggle, sinking to last place in the Eastern Conference standings, where they sit eight points out of a playoff spot.
Deal Can’t Be Fully Judged Yet
To be fair, it will be the longer term before the Savoie/McLeod swap can be judged fairly. But in the here and now, Edmonton is getting more from Savoie than it ever got from McLeod, and at a fraction of McLeod’s current contract (Savoie is currently on Year 2 of a three-year, $2.66 million entry-level deal). For a team that is in win-now mode, that’s critical for the Oilers.
Savoie has goals in back-to-back games for the first time in his NHL career, while McLeod hasn’t scored in his last eight games. Oilers fans would love to see both the former streak and latter slump continue when Edmonton and Buffalo face off at Rogers Place on Tuesday night.
