{"id":481627,"date":"2026-02-17T22:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481627\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T22:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:31:08","slug":"olympics-samanski-makes-big-strides-at-milano-cortina-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481627\/","title":{"rendered":"OLYMPICS: Samanski makes big strides at Milano Cortina 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Samanski, 23, set up the game\u2019s first goal Tuesday with a beautiful backhand pass to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/leon-draisaitl-8477934\" title=\"Leon Draisaitl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leon Draisaitl<\/a> at 3:40 of the first period. Draisaitl returned the favor in the third period, serving up a pass for Samanski\u2019s first goal of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Each goal came on the power play, which was dormant throughout the preliminary round, going 1-for-9.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJosh does a great job netfront, especially on the power play,\u201d Germany coach Harold Kreis said.<\/p>\n<p>Draisaitl and Samanski have been building on a chemistry that has taken root with the Oilers, who signed Samanski as a free agent on April 2, 2025. He has two assists in five games for the Oilers this season, and 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 39 games with Bakersfield of the American Hockey League.<\/p>\n<p>On the game\u2019s opening goal, Samanski feathered a pass to Draisaitl, stationed in the far circle. In the blink of an eye, it was in the net.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt that point I\u2019m just trying to put it in his wheelhouse, and his wheelhouse is pretty big,\u201d Samanski said, laughing.<\/p>\n<p>Samanski extended Germany\u2019s lead to 4-1 at 7:01 of the third in a game that, until then, was much tighter than expected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat goal was big for us in the third,\u201d forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/jj-peterka-8482175\" title=\"JJ Peterka\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">JJ Peterka<\/a> said. \u201cFrom start to finish, a super solid game for him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samanski, 23, set up the game\u2019s first goal Tuesday with a beautiful backhand pass to Leon Draisaitl at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-481627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}