The cupboards are bare.
The future’s been mortgaged.
The pipe has run dry.
At least, that’s been the narrative in Edmonton over the past couple years, after the Oilers made back-to-back runs to the Stanley Cup Final.
But down in California, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Jose, there is a farm busy reseeding annually, where the whole purpose is to grow the next crop of talent for the organization.
The Bakersfield Condors have been the Oilers’ American Hockey League affiliate since the Connor McDavid Era began in 2015.
At that point, playoffs were hardly a concern, with the Oilers just emerging from the Decade of Darkness. And the next five years were hit or miss when it came to post-season qualifying.
“If I go back to my first year as the head coach here in Bakersfield, we’re talking playoff run,” said Chaulk, who took over the Condors bench, initially under the interim title, in February 2022, just as the Oilers were about to take a run to the Western Conference Final.
All he’s known in that time is the playoff version of the Edmonton Oilers. And two years later, they’d be making their first Stanley Cup Final appearance in 18 years.
“On that team, there were 10 guys that had spent time in Bakersfield,” Chaulk said. “There was Calvin Pickard, there was Ryan McLeod, Vincent Desharnais, Dylan Holloway, Philip Broberg. There were considerable players that were developed in Bakersfield.
“That loss was a hard one to swallow for all of us, because the AHL staff worked so hard getting them to where they were.”
Emerging talent doesn’t always remain in the system. Such is the nature of the business.
But the pieces can be used to swing big deals, like when 2022 first-round draft pick Reid Schaefer was part of a trade to bring Mathias Ekholm into the fold that year, providing the Oilers with an anchor on the blue line that has been heavily relied upon in their Cup runs.
The challenge, of course, is as playoff runs pile up, the more strain is placed on a farm team to produce, which is made more difficult when a team like the Oilers, whose first-round pick went to the Los Angeles Kings and second-round pick went to the New Jersey Devils.
Their 2024 first-round draft pick, Sam O’Reilly, was traded over the off-season for NCAA Hoby Baker award winner Ike Howard, who made the Oilers roster out of training camp this year, along with Bakersfield products Matt Savoie and Noah Philp.
“Savoie was traded for Tyler Tullio and Ryan McLeod. You trade a real NHL player and a first-round pick, and then he spends a year in the minors and now, from a salary-cap perspective, I think it’s a brilliant move for management, and the development that had gone on in the American league,” Chaulk said. “And Noah Philp, that’s a free player out of the U of A. He spent two out of the past four years in Bakersfield a lot of the time.”
There is a definite youth movement going on in the Oilers roster right now.
Edmonton Oilers forward Josh Samanski during preseason NHL action against the Seattle Kraken at Rogers Place, in Edmonton on Wednesday Sept. 24, 2025.
“And the one everybody forgets is a seventh-round pick in Max Wanner, is traded, really, for Trent Frederic. So, that’s the American league staff. And then you see Frederic sign an eight-year extension,” Chaulk said. “Based on not having a lot of first-round picks the last few years (either 2023 or ’25), I think Edmonton management is getting everything they can get out of it.
“And the last part of it is a wonderful job by Stan (Bowman, Oilers general manager) and the player acquisitions in Europe, because there’s not a lot of draft picks. So, (Josh) Samanski and (Viljami) Marjala, free agent (Quinn) Hutson and (Atro) Leppanen, these are players that will learn and, obviously, the goal is to try to make some of them Oilers as well. It’s not like you’ve got first-round picks. Noah Philp was undrafted.”
As far as first-rounders go, the only one Edmonton’s made that’s stuck in the organization since McDavid in 2015, is defenceman Evan Bouchard (2018).
But just because the cupboards don’t have a lot of them in stock right now, they are far from bare.
“It’s what drives as an American league staff, is to develop players to play for the Edmonton Oilers,” Chaulk said. “Everyone is competitive, and everyone from a young age enjoys the feeling of winning. Now, that’s not our sole focus.
“What we do in Bakersfield is try to develop and put a competitive product on the ice. I think that’s always the challenge. Development is also an important element to learn how to win. Although it’s not the sole focus, it’s a piece of it. You also want to enjoy the process.”
E-mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge
Related
Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post, and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun