EDMONTON — Suddenly, there are only three pre-season games remaining. If you are Noah Philp, or David Tomasek, or even Josh Samanski — and you’re planning on showing the Oilers brass something — time is running out.
On a day where 14 hopefuls were Bakersfield bound, those three all made their mark in a 4-0 win over the Winnipeg Jets on Friday.
Philp had a nice snipe and played a solid defensive game, Tomasek showed some offensive flair and created a goal off a nifty steal, and Samanski buried a puck right under the bar for a goal and added an assist.
There is a world in which we can see Tomasek and Philp on Edmonton’s roster when the season starts. Samanski, however, will be taking his talents to Bakersfield, where he’ll do his best to learn the North American game while auditioning for a spot on Germany’s Olympic roster come February.
Could Samanski find himself in Italy on Leon Draisaitl’s national team?
“For sure,” he said after the game. “If you don’t think that way, you’re in the wrong sport.
“I think I presented myself pretty well at the world championships. I just want to make the coach have a hard decision not to pick me.”
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GM Stan Bowman may have a nice find in Samanski, the six-foot-two, 195-pound, free-agent signing. He’s big, skates well, and comes off as an intelligent young man — a huge part of figuring out what one’s role should be in order to succeed as an NHL player.
But the 23-year-old Samanski is a project. At 27, Philp’s time to crack an NHL lineup has arrived.
“I’d love to,” Philp said. “That’s why I’m here. That’s the goal.
“They always tell you — and it’s true — that it’s up to you.”
Philp has a couple of goals this camp, and is working diligently with new assistant coach Paul McFarland on his faceoffs. The Oilers need a righty to take faceoffs — particularly on the penalty kill — and Philp just might be that guy.
“Last year I struggled offensively,” he said of 2024 training camp. “For me it’s usually a defensive focus. But now I’m feeling pretty confident, trying to work on the offensive side as well.”
Calvin Pickard went the distance, stopping 21 shots for the shutout.
Doc talk
Darnell Nurse and the Oilers’ blue-line are getting some long awaited respect around the National Hockey League, with Jake Walman starting this season on the second pairing.
It’s not often that the pre-season pundits are grading Edmonton’s D corps out as one of the better bluelines in the NHL, but they are this season, after two straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final.
“We’re a group that played together in the playoffs last year, so you get a lot of familiarity with each other in tough situations,” said Nurse, the longest-serving Edmonton defenceman, who wired a shot off the post and in for the first goal of the game Friday. “It makes the game easier when you’re able to play with guys you’ve played with over the past few seasons.”
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They’re back again, fresh off another disappointment in the Final. The last team to start a season after two straight Final losses was the 1978-79 Boston Bruins, who lost both previous years to the Montreal Canadiens.
The Habs made it back to win the Cup in ’79, but the Bruins did not make the trip.
“To a man, we are a very motivated group,” Nurse promised. “There’s the disappointment of losing the first time (in the Cup Final). The second time is disappointing as well, and you don’t get over it.
“With that being said, there is a motivation in our group, and you could tell from even before camp.”
The theme here in Edmonton isn’t about getting back to the Cup, however. Not yet at least.
Right now they’re focused on finding their game earlier than they have the past two autumns — grabbing hold of the Pacific Division early, instead of chasing it all season long as they have the past two seasons.
“An area where we’ve preached but haven’t been good enough at, is the start of our season. For us, it started on Day 1 of camp, and we’ve got to continue it into the regular season,” said Nurse.
He was asked about the Olympic team, a perk that Nurse’s name is seldom associated with.
“Is it a dream of mine to play for Canada? Of course it is,” he said. “It’s everyone’s dream in our room to represent their country, and play in those big moments. But that doesn’t come from fantasizing over it every day. It comes from work, and taking it one day at a time.”
First cuts the deepest
The first cuts of camp came on Friday, with 14 players directed towards AHL Bakersfield:
Placed on waivers for the purpose of assignment to Bakersfield
James Hamblin (F)
Loaned to Bakersfield
Connor Clattenburg (F)
Jayden Grubbe (F)
Matvey Petrov (F)
James Stefan (F)
Brady Stonehouse (F)
Beau Akey (D)
Nathaniel Day (G)
Released and will report to Bakersfield
Matt Copponi (F)
Seth Griffith (F)
Rem Pitlick (F)
Rhett Pitlick (F)
Mason Millman (D)
Luke Prokop (D)
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·