Oilers acquire AHL standout Devon Levi from Rochester Americans
Edmonton bought low on Devon Levi, adding the AHL’s minutes leader and a 39-game NHL goalie while sending Buffalo a 2028 third-rounder.
Edmonton pulled one of the day’s most meaningful goaltending swings on July 1, landing Devon Levi and a seventh-round pick in the 2028 NHL Draft from Buffalo for its own third-round pick in 2028. The move gave the Oilers a 23-year-old goalie on a low $812,500 cap hit through 2026-27, but the real question is whether Edmonton sees Levi as a near-term NHL answer or as a crease project that needs AHL runway before it can stabilize anything above Bakersfield.
The case for patience is in the workload. Levi led the entire AHL with 3,029 minutes for Rochester in 2025-26, making 52 regular-season appearances while posting a 23-20-9 record, a 2.83 goals-against average, a .904 save percentage and three shutouts. That is not a cameo season or a sheltered split. It is a full-time starter’s load, and it says Rochester leaned on him heavily while Buffalo kept him right in the middle of its goaltending picture.
Levi’s Rochester track record is strong enough to keep the upside argument alive. In 120 AHL regular-season games over parts of three seasons with the Americans, he went 64-39-17 with a 2.52 GAA, a .914 save percentage and 10 shutouts. He was named to the 2025 AHL All-Star Classic roster, then added Player of the Week honors for the period ending Feb. 23, 2025 after two perfect starts in which he stopped all 56 shots he faced and turned aside all five shootout attempts.
He also showed that his game traveled into the postseason. Levi earned his first career playoff shutout on April 27, 2025 against Syracuse, then posted two shutouts in three playoff games as Rochester swept the Syracuse Crunch in the North Division semifinal. For a goalie still sorting out his NHL ceiling, that is the sort of high-leverage work that keeps front offices interested.
Buffalo has already seen both sides of the evaluation. Levi owns 39 NHL appearances for the Sabres with a 17-17-2 record, a 3.29 GAA and an .894 save percentage. He first reached Rochester on loan from Buffalo on Nov. 28, 2023 after his NHL debut and two seasons at Northeastern University, then signed a two-year, $1.625 million deal with the Sabres on July 31, 2025. Edmonton is betting that the next stage of that development can happen in its own system, with the Oilers and their AHL staff now carrying the pressure of turning heavy mileage into a reliable NHL goaltender.
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