NHL players sometimes begin their pro careers on AHL only contracts. Oilers fans may remember names like Mark Arcobello, Charles Linglet, or more recently Vincent Desharnais and James Hamblin.
The current Oilers have signed several interesting prospects to full NHL deals, including a passel from Europe.
Earlier in the offseason, Bakersfield Condors signed some interesting Pitlicks and a magic Copponi to AHL deals, effectively overstocking shelves in California and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Yesterday, the club added four more AHL deals.
Luke Prokop is 23. He is 6.05, 223 pounds and I ranked him No. 85 in my final 2020 ‘Here Comes the Sun’ rankings. I wrote “A giant (6.04, 218) able to close gaps and suppress offense” and he has a reputation for being an effective defender at the minor league level. His wingspan isn’t quite Vincent Desharnais level, but you can see him from there. Prokop is RH and big, he should be a strong AHL option for the Condors. He’s young enough to have an NHL career, we’ll see how he shines.
Mats Lindgren is the son of Mats Lindgren. I would like to thank the family for making things easy to figure out. The younger Lindgren is a left defenseman who played most of last season in the ECHL with the Wheeling Nailers. I wrote about him at The Athletic before the 2022 draft, suggesting speed would get him as far as he could go. Lindgren turns 21 in a couple of weeks, this is a player with room to grow. Strong addition to the Condors, and possibly the Oilers prospect pipeline.
Trevor Janicke is a RH center who turns 25 on Christmas day. He came out of college (Notre Dame) last fall and scored well for the Rapid City Rush (ECHL) and not at all for the Calgary Wranglers (AHL) in 2024-25. He’s small, but skilled and plays an aggressive game. Janicke is a bit of an unknown to us, but did have some draft buzz (fifth round) back in 2019.
Matt Brown is 26, and an undersized skill winger. He has been in pro hockey for two seasons, and scored 32 goals in 92 ECHL games. He had a massive year for Boston University as a college senior, and was named to the Hockey-East All-Star team.
The Oilers are (from my point of view) using all available procurement avenues in an attempt to re-stock the minor-league system. It would be easy to underestimate the effort, with players like Desharnais and Arcobello examples of past success.
That’s the wrong way to view things. Edmonton has never been more in need of quality recruits, and these names have an enormous opportunity this fall. The New York Rangers found Mike Ridley at the University of Manitoba 40 years ago. Looking far and wide for talent is always a good idea.
On the Lowdown today, we’ll have the exhausting round table noon to 2pm on Sports 1440. The wisecracking Declan Krueger, the salty Donovan Paulson and the upstart Josh Fenwick will all be there offering up opinions on the Oilers, Elks, Riverhawks, Jays and more. Hope you can tune in.
A couple of AHL/ECHL tweeners in the group yesterday – maybe a Cam Wright comes out of the bunch.
The one player mentioned by LT that I am interested in is Matt Copponi.
A very good year at Merimack offensively but a step back this past season at BU – he was buried on a very stacked team, of course.
I liked his game in his small sample with the Condors (2 apples in 3 games as well) and I look for him to be the guy that earns an NHL contract.
Quinn Hutson led the BU team in scoring and had nearly double the points of Copponi but, at the same time, he’s 18 months older.
Which one is the “better prospect”?
Hutson
Just had a quick look at Puckpedia, it’s going to be a wild camp in Bakersfield. There are a lot of players for the number of spots. Fantastic depth down in the AHL/ECHL.
Makes me wonder if Bowman is expecting movement via trades/waivers at the end of camp.
Nice to see GMSB adding new warm bodies to Bako. Sounds like all 4 new Condors add some speed/compete to the mix. And Prokop is a large human being!
Another post awaiting approval….. the last one got deleted. I do not understand.
What is the issue?
None. Don’t know why it got caught in the filter.
I know this has happened to you a few times recently and I understand your frustration as it also happens to me sporadically.
There are some words that will will get a post caught in the filter – naming the owner of the team, a player’s name from the world junior trial, etc.
At the same time, I get the random innocuous post caught and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why – I had one yesterday on Kostin that got caught – no idea why. Tried to re-post, caught again.
It’s a mystery. This old blog is SO old that updates from wordpress can send it sideways
The signing of Luke Prokop is impressive to me. This kid should be on an NHL contract somewhere, because of size, Right Shot, draft pedigree and skating. But he is not.
He started to show flashes of very good in Milwaukee towards the latter part of the season, but he was buried down the depth chart by veteran blue and winning, rather than development.
This signing, along with Copponi and the Pitlicks are simply excellent moves. I am really impressed with how things are shaking out in Condorstown.
Agree on being impressed by these recent additions. I’m particularly interested in Lindgren due to his age and wheels.
I was pretty high on him in his draft year and will be curious to see how he fares in a pool suddenly filled with average-ish sized LH dmen who are fleet of foot.
Not sure about his chances, but he was definitely a player on my radar that Draft. He will have the Bako leftorium to hurdle, but he is an intriguing player.
Big D like Prokup may take years on the development train before they pop. I’m really excited on Bakersfield it’s going to take a few years but at least they look like they have a actual plan and are laying the foundation.
Exactly!
Amen