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.

Current Oilers

Leon Draisaitl

Far and away the best name on the list, Leon Draisaitl is a bit of a grey area here. He technically made his NHL debut in 2014-15 straight out of junior, but he was sent back to junior that same season to dominate. The next season – 2015-16 he was assigned to Bakersfield and played a mere 6 games there, going 1-1-2 with 4 PIMs and a -5 in those 6 games.

He made the NHL for good after that, and the rest, as they say, is history. He’s gone on to become an NHL superstar and far and away the best NHL player to come out of Germany. In 2020 Draisaitl took the trifecta of the Hart, Ted Lindsay, and Art Ross trophies after leading the NHL with 43 goals and 110 points, in the process silencing critics who accused him of riding Mcdavid’s coattails.

Once Mcdavid was injured partway through the year and Draisaitl had to run the top of the forward ranks by himself, we got to see he could drive the bus on his line just as well as Mcdavid could.

Jesse Puljujarvi

Another one that’s a bit of a grey area, Puljujarvi, like Draisaitl, nonetheless exclusively played his AHL hockey in Bakersfield. After he showed some talent in the Finnish pro leagues, the Oilers drafted him in 2016 after Columbus passed on him to draft Pierre-Luc Dubois instead.

He started the season in Bakersfield in 2016-17 and after lighting it up was called up to the Oilers, and he was shuttled back and forth between the Oilers and Bakersfield for the next two seasons.

Growing an ego and an attitude during his 1st go-around here, along with the club rushing him to the NHL before he was ready, along with dissatisfaction of playing on the 3rd line when he believed he belonged on the 1st line, led him to refuse to re-sign with the Oilers after his ELC was up.

He went back to Finland after the year was up and spent the year there hitting the reset button and regaining his confidence. After Ken Holland became the GM and inherited this baggage from Peter Chiarelli, he played hardball in the trade offers, and because he never got one he liked he ended up convincing Puljujarvi to re-sign with the Oilers.

He came back last season more mature and with less attitude. He spent the 1st six games on the 3rd line, but when Zack Kassian was struggling Dave Tippett put him at 1st line RW next to Connor Mcdavid.

He ended up with the best season of his young NHL career, putting up 15 goals and 25 points in 55 games with a +6 to boot. If next season is the full 82 game season as expected, and Puljujarvi doesn’t regress, expect him to score 20 goals next season. If he can score 15 in 55, he’s certainly capable of 20 in 82. The math says it’s 22 if he scores at the same rate as last season.

Kailer Yamamoto

This one’s a bit of a grey area too. Yamamoto also made the leap from junior to the NHL, but he made his NHL debut in 2017-18 and only played nine games, proving he needed more seasoning, so he went back to junior and dominated, then made his AHL debut with Bakersfield in 2018-19, before callup #2, this time for 17 games.

He ended up starting in Bakersfield again the next season, before being called up for the last time and putting up 11 goals and 26 points in 27 games for the Oilers. He regressed to eight goals and 21 points this past season but remains a key part of the top six. His ELC is up so Ken Holland will have to re-sign him to his next contract, which is likely a bridge contract.

Juhjar Khaira

Khaira played in OKC (the Oiler’s previous AHL affiliate) while in the minors, so this is an interesting area as well. However, he never got called up while playing for OKC, and followed the minor league team west when they moved to Bakersfield. It was after that 1st season in Bakersfield that he got to make his Oilers debut, putting up 2 assists in 15 games with a -2 – not bad for a rookie bottom 6 forward.

Not great either, but not bad. He went back to Bakersfield 1 more time, then after lighting it up with 8 goals and 20 points in 27 games for Bakersfield, he made it back to the Oilers for 10 games and has been with the team ever since. He is an RFA at the time of this writing so he needs to be either signed on his own or issued a QO to remain an Oiler.

Ethan Bear

Finally, we get to the guys who are the pure development path guys. Bear made his Bakersfield debut after graduating to the AHL from junior, putting up 6-12-18 with a -8. He was called up to the Oilers that same season, putting up 1-3-4 in 18 games with a -11.

He went back to Bakersfield the next season, this time dominating with 6-25-31 in 52 games with a +14. Gaining huge momentum after that 2nd season, he made his full-time NHL debut for the Oilers in 2019-20, with 5-16-21 in 71 games with a -4 to boot.

He regressed a bit this past season, only putting up 2-6-8 and a -1 in 43 games, but seemed to be finding his game towards the end of the season. He’s poised to be one of the players protected in the expansion draft, but beyond that, it’s unclear where he could play. He could play on the top pairing with Nurse, or on the 2nd pairing with Keith, or perhaps share time on the 3rd pairing with Evan Bouchard. But the organization values him highly so one way or another he’s on the team.

Evan Bouchard

Bouchard seems poised to occupy at least a part-time spot in the bottom pairing, and likely the regular spot on the 3rd pairing.

The Oilers did give him a seven-game look-see in 2018-19 straight up from junior, but he proved he needed more seasoning, so they sent him down to junior to dominate – which he did – when he joined the Condors for eight playoff games that same season, putting up 3-5-8 in the eight games they played that season.

He followed that up with an entire season in Bakersfield, putting up 7-29-36 in 54 games for the Condors in 2019-20 – with a -10 to boot. He was sent to the Swedish pro leagues to play at the beginning of last season, then spent last season cycling between the taxi squad and part time NHLer once the NHL season began. It was always a mystery to me as to why Bouchard didn’t get more playing time last season, but that’s a topic for another time.

William Lagesson

Depth defender Lagesson bounced around the Swedish junior leagues, USHL, US College ranks, and the Swedish pro leagues before making his AHL debut with the Condors in 2018-19, putting up 8-19-27 with a whopping +25 and 45 PIMs in 67 games.

The next season he started out in Bakersfield, putting up 3-7-10 in 25 games with a +2 before being called up and putting up no offence in 8 games with a -4. This past season Lagesson started off in the Swedish pro leagues before coming back to the Oilers once the NHL started up again and cycled between the active roster and the taxi squad, putting up 0-2-2 in 19 games and with a 0 last season.

With only 27 NHL games under his belt, it’s hard to know exactly what we have with Lagesson. He needs to play more. He’s going to be one of the prime candidates to be taken by Seattle in the expansion draft, especially now that Caleb Jones has departed the organization. Otherwise, he’s signed cheaply for one more season.

Patrick Russell

Noted Danish coke machine Patrick Russell is still Oilers property until July 28, so he counts as a current Oiler. Starting out in the Swedish juniors, then the USHL, then the US College system, Russell made his AHL debut in 2016-17 for the Condors with 8-9-17 in 68 games for the Condors.

He spent another two full seasons with the Condors before making his NHL debut in 2018-19, his boxcars increasing every year of his AHL career. He has spent the last two seasons after that as a depth bottom-six player who has been a healthy scratch more often than not, and his AHL offence hasn’t translated over to the NHL as 59 games into his NHL career he has yet to score a goal. He’s a UFA now and is unlikely to be back.

Stuart Skinner

The only other guy who was called up to the Oilers this season (in his case unofficially via training camp), Skinner was only supposed to be the #4 goalie occupying a spot on the taxi squad, but he ended up playing a bigger role than we thought.

Drafted in the 3rd round in 2017, Skinner graduated to the AHL after five seasons of junior, where he proceeded to be so forgettable as a goalie that he cycled between the AHL and the ECHL for the first two seasons of his pro career. His career looked to be on life support until he finally woke up this past season, starting out on the taxi squad but being pressed into service when Anton Forsberg was snapped up on waivers and Mike Smith became injured.

He was forced into an NHL debut after Mikko Koskinen couldn’t carry the load anymore and was in desperate need of a rest, and with a multiple game series coming up against bottom feeder Ottawa, the Oilers saw this as the perfect opportunity to give Koskinen a rest. Skinner ended up winning the game 8-5, and after some early game, jitters showed some potential.

After Mike Smith came back and the Oilers could callup Dylan Wells to be the #4 guy without worrying about losing anyone of consequence, Skinner went back down to Bakersfield and dominated the latter half of the AHL season, finishing in the top 10 in the AHL in wins, GAA, and sv%.

This past season has likely saved his career, and at this point, it looks like Mike Smith will be signed after the expansion draft with Koskinen and Stalock being exposed and Skinner will be the one who’s protected. Who knew? Skinner likely saved his career with his season as he could be poised to be a future backup for the Oilers provided he can follow up last season with a season as good or better.

Tyler Benson

After a successful junior career, Benson debuted for the Condors in the 2017-18 season, jumping straight into the pros after his junior career was done that same season, putting up three assists in five games with a -1, not a bad pro debut. He followed that up with 66 points in 68 games for Bakersfield, then 36 in 47. He made his NHL debut in the 2019-20 season, playing seven games for the Oilers and putting up a single assist with a -1 in those games.

Benson was loaned to the Swiss leagues for the beginning of last season, before coming back to Bakersfield to put up 36 points in 36 games for Bakersfield. Provided he doesn’t get taken in the expansion draft, Benson is a likely candidate for the bottom 6 as early as next season.

Joseph Gambardella

Like Patrick Russell, Gambardella is a free agent, so he’s Oilers property until the 28th. He came here as an AHL free agent, jumping from US College hockey to Bakersfield for 6 games in 2016-17. He put up 1-2-3 and a -2 in those games. After that the Oilers signed him to a two way contract, and he spent most of the next 2 seasons with the Condors, making his NHL debut in 2018-19 with three assists in 15 games with a +2. Solid numbers for a callup, but he never got a sniff at the NHL again after that, spending the last two seasons with Bakersfield and is a UFA at this point.

Cooper Marody

Another free agent who’s Oilers property until the 28th, Marody is an RFA at this point in time and is likely to be re-signed, provided he doesn’t get picked in the expansion draft by Seattle. The Oilers actually traded for his rights in 2018, and after three seasons in the USHL and another three in US College hockey, Marody made his debut for the Condors in the 2017-18 season, going 1-2-3 in 3 games with a 0.

Pretty good numbers for a pro debut. He followed that up with 64 points in 58 games, which led to an Oilers callup in 2018-19 in which he put up no offence in six games with a -1. He’s spent the last two seasons as a Condor, save for one game in the Austrian pro leagues. Marody was 1/3 of the killer line along with Mcleod and Benson, so he’s on the radar for a bottom 6 forward spot.

Ex-Oilers

Caleb Jones

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately, you should know that as of yesterday Caleb Jones is now a Chicago Blackhawk thanks to the Duncan Keith trade. Jones was drafted in 2015 and after a season in which he finished with 55 points in 72 games in junior, he got a callup to Bakersfield in 2015-16, putting up no points and a -2 in three games for the Condors.

He went back to junior the next season, putting up 62 points in 63 games – now he’s ready for pro hockey early (that was only his 2nd season of junior). He made Bakersfield the next season and put up 2-15-17 with an ugly -25 in 58 games. The next season, however – 2018-29 – he cleaned up his game and put up 6-23-29 with a sparkling +16 in 50 games with Bakersfield. Quite an improvement defensively.

He was rewarded with his first callup to the Oilers, putting up 1-5-6 with a -9 in 17 games. He started the next season in Bakersfield once more, but after 11 points in 14 games proved he was ready for the next step – and fortunately, Kris Russell became injured so Jones had his signature season to date, putting up 4-5-9 in 43 games with a -1 to boot. He followed that up by regressing this past season, going 0-4-4 in 33 games as a part-time 3rd pairing D, with a -7 to boot.

Whether he can move into the top 6 at some point remains unclear. He’ll certainly have more opportunity on a weaker team in Chicago to do that.

Josh Currie

I can’t find any information to confirm this but IIRC Currie came to the Oilers as an AHL free agent, surprisingly going undrafted after putting up 104 points in 68 games in his last season of junior.

After 3 seasons in the ECHL, the Oilers organization signed him and assigned him to Bakersfield. He proceeded to increase his point totals virtually every year for his first 4 years in the AHL, then making his NHL debut with the Oilers in the 2018-19 season, in which he put up 2-3-5 with a +2 in 21 games. I assumed he’d be poised for at least a longer look next year, but he proceeded to spend the entirety of the 2019-20 season in Bakersfield, putting up 41 points in 56 games.

The organization didn’t re-sign him, so he signed with the Penguins organization for last season, playing one game for the Pens and putting up no offence and a 0. However, he did put up 23 points in 24 games for Wilkes-Barre Scranton, their AHL affiliate.

Anton Slepyshev

Back in the decade of darkness, the Oilers were pretty desperate for forwards, especially bottom-six ones. Enter Anton Slepyshev. A Russian who decided to try his hand at the NHL, Slepyshev played 11 games for the Oilers (putting up a single assist and a -5) before going down to Bakersfield. He then spent the next two seasons shuttling between the Oilers and Bakersfield before going back to Russia to play in the KHL again.

Dillon Simpson

The not-so illustrious son of former Oiler Craig Simpson, Simpson wasn’t much of an NHL player as he ended up playing only 3 NHL games, all with the Oilers. After four years of US College hockey, he spent one year in Oklahoma City with the previous farm team, then moved west when the team moved to Bakersfield. He was an OK prospect but never managed to put up more than 20 points for the Condors in a season.

Was a + player for 3 our of 4 years, though. His 3 games were in the 2016-17 season. He produced no points and was 0 in those games. However, needing to make room for better prospects, the Oilers didn’t re-sign Simpson and he signed a two way contract as a free agent with the Cleveland Monsters, Columbus’s farm team. That’s where he remained last season, and according to Puckpedia is a free agent now. Likely nothing more than an AHL veteran at this stage.