Oilers: Ryan McLeod becomes the 17th Condor to make his NHL debut

The Bakersfield Condors have been the Edmonton Oilers farm team since 2015.

As of last season, we’ve now reached a milestone that 17 players in those five years have made their big league debuts. That’s a much better drafting record than what the Oilers have had in the past.

Peter Chiarelli didn’t do a lot of good in this city as GM, but one good thing he did was to do a housecleaning of the scouting staff. It was long overdue and we all knew the “old boys club” would’ve never had the nerve to do it due to sentimental attachment.

Ryan Mcleod was one of only two callups to the team last season to make their NHL debut, due largely to the border closures because of covid making it much more complicated and time-consuming to bring up players.

The other guy – Stuart Skinner – had to start the season on the taxi squad and see the #3 goalie get picked up waivers and the #1A goalie get injured before he would make his NHL debut. This wasn’t a direct call-up per se, but it still counts in my book.

Let’s go through the list of guys who made their NHL debuts thanks to the much-improved scouting we’ve seen over the last 6 years. As you would expect, not all of them are impact players but whether you play one or 1,000 games it still counts.