CALGARY, Alta. The Edmonton Oilers will wrap up their 2026 rookie camp on Monday night against the Calgary Flames rookies at Scotiabank Saddledome, a one-off Battle of Alberta that doubles as the first public look at the club’s most recent draft class.
Puck drop is 6 p.m. MT, and the game is being streamed free on Oilers+, the team said in its game preview.
The projected lineup the Oilers released Monday reunites a line that was one of the American Hockey League’s most effective combinations through the first half of last season, with Josh Samanski centring Isaac Howard and Quinn Hutson. All three spent the bulk of 2025-26 with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, and all three earned NHL minutes along the way.
Samanski’s late-January call-up turned into an extended stay in Edmonton. The 24-year-old German posted two goals and two assists in 24 regular-season games and added a goal and an assist in five playoff contests, according to the team, and he represented Germany at both the Winter Olympics and the world championship.
Hutson made his NHL debut against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Jan. 3 and scored his first goal two nights later against the Boston Bruins before returning to Bakersfield, where he led all AHL rookies with 30 goals and finished second on the Condors with 63 points.
Behind them, Finnish forward Viljami Marjala, who was third on the Condors last season with 60 points (17 goals) in 72 games, centres Rhett Pitlick and first-year professional David Lewandowski. Owen Michaels, the captain of NCAA champion Western Michigan last season, centres William Nicholl and camp invitee Simon Tassey on the third line. Michaels has three seasons of college hockey behind him and spent time with the Oilers last season after signing with the organization.
The fourth line is the one Oil Country has not seen before. Rudolfs Berzkalns is slotted between Ryan Cameron and Caden Harvey, three of Edmonton’s four selections from the 2026 NHL Draft. Berzkalns went 58th overall in the second round, Andrew Robinson 133rd in the fifth and Harvey 180th in the sixth, with Cameron taken in the seventh. Robinson, a defenceman, is paired with Tomas Cibulka.
Damien Carfagna and Beau Akey, both of whom spent last season in Bakersfield, are the senior pair on the back end. Cibulka, a Czech blueliner who played four seasons in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League before two years with HC Motor Ceske Budejovice, signed a two-year entry-level contract with Edmonton in late March.
Projected forward lines: Howard-Samanski-Hutson, Pitlick-Marjala-Lewandowski, Nicholl-Michaels-Tassey and Cameron-Berzkalns-Harvey, with Olli Wahlroos as the extra. Defence pairs: Carfagna-Akey, Robinson-Cibulka and Samuel Sjolund-Zach Bookman, with Kyle Heger the extra. Goaltenders Nathaniel Day, Eemil Vinni and Samuel Jonsson are each expected to play a period.
Twenty-five prospects reported to Rogers Place on Friday, 14 forwards, seven defencemen and four goaltenders. The group went through three days of on-ice sessions and off-ice team building before heading south. Monday is its only competitive game of rookie camp and, for most of the roster, the last chance to make an impression before Oilers main camp opens this week.
The team has pointed to Howard, Samanski, Hutson and Connor Clattenburg, all of whom saw NHL time last season, as the group’s added experience and leadership. Clattenburg, who spoke with reporters in Edmonton on Sunday, is not listed in Monday’s projected lineup, and the club did not say why.
Head coach Colin Chaulk is behind the bench for the rookies. The calendar tightens quickly from here: Edmonton hosts Fan Day at Rogers Place and Ice District on Saturday, Sept. 19, the same day it opens its pre-season schedule, and the Oilers begin the regular season at home against the Vancouver Canucks on Sept. 29.
Sources: Edmonton Oilers game preview and projected lineup, EdmontonOilers.com (Jamie Umbach), Sept. 14, 2026, and Oilers team releases.
Photo: Scotiabank Saddledome ahead of a Flames and Oilers prospects game in September 2019. Credit: Daniel Richardson (Daniel from Glasgow, United Kingdom), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
