The Oilers sent Josh Samanski to the AHL this morning, and Owen Michaels is still standing in the NHL locker room.
The timing stings. The Oilers open their season Tuesday night at home against Vancouver, and a forward who was on the roster last season won't be part of it.
Injuries up front left Edmonton short several forwards when camp opened. Samanski had every reason to think one of those spots belonged to him.
His camp wasn't bad. It was fine, and fine is a dangerous word when a coach keeps finding reasons to leave another name off the cut list.
That other name belongs to the forward nobody penciled in. Mike Babcock admitted the player "wasn't supposed to be here," then noted the great thing about plans is "you get to change them."
"Well, he's played well," Babcock said of Michaels. "He really can skate, and if you look back at his career, he wasn't a big scorer, so he didn't hang his hat on that."
The coach also pointed to a national championship and said the two-way forward is "in all the good clips." For a staff grinding through video, that's the whole résumé.
Mike Babcock hands his AHL cut a faceoff and penalty kill checklist
Samanski got a very different message on his way to Bakersfield. "Get down there and get to work," Babcock said.
The list was specific. Babcock wants an elite faceoff guy, an elite penalty killer and "a great two-way defensive center," because that's the job waiting in Edmonton.
Then came the catch. Babcock said AHL clubs want a player like him "on the power play, play on the first line," and that it "sometimes gets in the way."
Babcock is right about the job. But Bakersfield belongs to Edmonton, so if the farm usage undercuts the NHL plan, somebody in Stan Bowman's front office should fix it before blaming the player.
It's like telling a line cook to master prep, then sending him to a kitchen that parks him on the grill every night.
"He's old enough now to understand that's what he's got to do to get back," the coach added. That line has a clock built into it.
Babcock rewards what a player did yesterday, and Michaels keeps winning yesterday. Tuesday is the first night it actually counts.
The Oilers carry a four-game win streak into the opener after beating Calgary 4-1 on Saturday. Then they visit Vancouver on Thursday and host Seattle on Saturday.
With Leon Draisaitl at $14,000,000 and Connor McDavid at $12,500,000, every depth spot on this roster has to pull real weight on the bottom six.
Michaels bought another day. Samanski got homework. The bigger question is whether the Oilers go shopping for a right-shot center before either one gets a real answer.
Should the Oilers have kept Josh Samanski over Owen Michaels for opening night?
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