{"id":165050,"date":"2026-02-05T11:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/165050\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T11:44:50","slug":"oilers-assign-samanski-and-pickard-to-bakersfield-condors-ahead-of-olympic-break-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/165050\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers assign Samanski and Pickard to Bakersfield Condors ahead of Olympic break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/oilersnation.com\/stats\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a>  front office went to work immediately after Wednesday\u2019s loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nhl\/teams\/calgary_flames\/112\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Calgary Flames<\/a>, assigning two players to the Bakersfield Condors.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nhl\/players\/josh_samanski\/928900\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Josh Samanski<\/a> and Calvin Pickard have been sent down to the AHL, the club announced, but whether either will play there remains to be seen. <\/p>\n<p>Samanski earned his first NHL call-up in late January, playing five consecutive games, earning two assists, his first NHL points, in those games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He will be headed to Milan-Cortina to join Team Germany at the Olympics along with Leon Draisaitl, who sizzled <a href=\"http:\/\/oilersnation.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oilersnation<\/a> with frustrated comments about the Oilers\u2019 play in his final post-game before the break.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This indicates that when the Oilers resume play on Feb. 25th, Samanski could begin in Bakersfield. Forward Adam Henrique should be available to <a href=\"https:\/\/oilersnation.com\/2026\/01\/07\/edmonton-oilers-place-adam-henrique-on-injured-reserve-expected-to-return-after-olympic-break\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">return from injury<\/a>, but his first stretch of NHL games showed some of his strengths.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the AHL, Samanski has seven goals and 28 points in 39 games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Calvin Pickard hasn\u2019t played since January 8 and was the third goalie behind Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram.<\/p>\n<p>Pickard <a href=\"https:\/\/oilersnation.com\/news\/edmonton-oilers-goaltender-calvin-pickard-clears-nhl-waivers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cleared waivers<\/a> on Monday afternoon, as his Oilers teammates <a href=\"https:\/\/oilersnation.com\/2026\/02\/03\/edmonton-oilers-leon-draisaitl-mattias-ekholm-nhl-waivers-calvin-pickard-great-goalie-and-a-great-human-being\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lamented his departure<\/a> from the group, as the 34-year-old netminder has ingrained himself as a valued teammate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, the Condors\u2019 goaltending has been tremendous this season, with Connor Ungar playing lights out along with Matt Tomkins.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The undrafted Ungar is 8-1 since being called up from the ECHL, with a 1.76 goals against average and a .946 save percentage. Those are simply sensational numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tomkins has 13-6-5 with a 2.85 goals against average and a .913 save percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bakersfield is set to play seven games between February 6-24.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Pickard is no stranger to the American Hockey League. He played a total of 42 games with the Condors in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons before establishing himself as the Oilers number two goalie, and going on a Cinderella playoff run in the 2025 playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Edmonton Oilers front office went to work immediately after Wednesday\u2019s loss to the Calgary Flames, assigning two&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-165050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}