Josh Samanski is making himself impossible to ignore in Edmonton, and the case for him is built less on hype than on the kind of two-way work that tends to travel.
The rookie chatter around the Oilers has swelled fast, but Samanski has earned the attention. His regular-season NHL minutes offered one hint, though the stronger evidence comes from what he did in Bakersfield.
On the Condors’ top line, often alongside Ike Howard and Quinn Hutson, Samanski was the driver at even strength. He wasn’t necessarily the flashiest scorer on the unit, but he did plenty of the small things that help keep the puck out of his own net, and when he left for Edmonton, those linemates saw their goal share drop.
That’s a pretty loud endorsement.
The NHL sample was encouraging, too. Samanski posted a 55 percent goal share and a 1.75 expected GA-60, both team-best marks for Oilers players with more than 21 games. Those numbers came while he was playing less against elite competition than he eventually will, but they still stand out, especially for a player who was in Germany in the spring of 2025.
There’s also reason to think his offensive game can hold up without needing to be the headline act. In the AHL, Samanski put up .6 points per game at even strength, and that’s useful, though not a guarantee of big NHL scoring totals. Still, it compares favorably to Dylan Holloway, who managed 16-13-29 in 63 AHL games over three seasons, for .46 even strength points per game.
The bigger point is this: Samanski looks like an NHL player. The projection here is not stardom, and nobody is calling him Gretzky.
But he seems likely to score enough to stay in the lineup, help his line win five-on-five minutes, and be a useful penalty-kill option. That’s real value.
Dallas Eakins deserves credit for finding him, but Samanski deserves credit for turning himself into more than a 20-year-old prospect. The improvement in his game has come from work, and from getting better at the unglamorous parts of the job.
There’s even a bit of Leon Draisaitl in that arc - not the same player, obviously, but the idea of a skater who keeps adding to his game after the draft. Samanski has improved in ways that matter.
He’s not projected to be a 20-goal scorer in the NHL, and one estimate pegs him at 27 points over 82 games. But a line of 12-15-27 would absolutely keep him employed.
That kind of player is worth having.
The timing may help him, too. The Oilers are in a steadier place now than they were when Anton Lander arrived in Edmonton.
Lander was a similar type of player, but the organization was dealing with too much chaos then, and his path never really settled. Samanski may have a better runway.
Ike Howard is another name in the mix, and he should get his chance this fall if things break that way. He’s a good young offensive player who is still learning defensively, and there’s hope he gets a full shot.
Quinn Hutson may have a better opening now because of the Matt Savoie injury. Viljami Marjala and Connor Clattenburg both need work on their 200-foot game, though Clattenburg’s sample was much smaller.
Roby Jarventie also comes up as a missed opportunity, with the view here that he was the Condors’ best forward in the second half of the season.
Samanski’s arrival, then, comes with a real chance to stick. He’s in a better organizational spot, he’s already shown he can drive play, and the Oilers appear ready to see what he can do. That’s how a player turns a contract into a role.
In Other News...
Oilers Linked To A Top Six Winger Worth Watching Closely
Kirill Marchenko has quickly become one of the more interesting names on the winger market, and the Oilers are among the teams keeping close tabs on the Columbus forward. Montreal has been mentioned too, but from Edmontons side the appeal is easy to see. He is a top-six type who can help a contender at a premium position, and any player with that profile is going to draw attention when the trade chatter starts to pick up.
The catch is that Marchenko does not sound like a simple rental situation, which is why this one bears watching rather than assuming. Columbus has plenty of reason to proceed carefully with a young winger like that, especially if other front-office business around the league keeps changing the market. Between Connor Hellebuycks confirmed trade request and the speculation swirling around Winnipeg, the wider NHL landscape is shifting fast, and Edmonton will have to decide how aggressively it wants to stay in the mix if Marchenko ever becomes available. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Face A Core Question As Their Cup Window Tightens
As Edmonton looks for a way to keep its championship window open, the contrast with Montreal is hard to miss. Juraj Slafkovsky recently described the Canadiens mindset as one centered more on winning than on maximizing paydays, and Montreal has backed that up by locking in a growing core with long-term contracts for Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Slafkovsky himself.
For the Oilers, the question is whether they can create that same kind of stability while dealing with a more individualized approach to negotiations. With the window tightening, the challenge is not just finding talent, but keeping enough of it together long enough to turn contender status into something more lasting. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Face A Familiar McDavid Draisaitl Decision With Real Consequences
Stan Bowmans latest comments around Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl only reinforced how familiar this question has become in Edmonton: whether the Oilers are better served spreading out their two stars or leaning into the obvious temptation to stack them. Bowman did not present it as a closed case, but he did make clear there are arguments for putting the duo together, especially with the way the roster has struggled to provide enough scoring depth behind them.
The issue is not just about maximizing star power, but about how the rest of the lineup gets used when McDavid and Draisaitl are separated. Playing apart has made both of them heavy even-strength minute drivers, which can squeeze the opportunities available to everyone else and leave Edmonton trying to solve one lineup balance problem by creating another. [Read more 🡒]