The choice of an NHL player number is often as simple as the year player X was born, like Connor McDavid’s 97, or a player Y’s favourite as a kid, like Leon Draisaitl’s 29 to salute ex-U of Alberta Golden Bears forward Ben Thomson, who was playing for Leon’s dad’s pro team in Germany.
Then, there’s local product James Hamblin, who has a pathway to making the Edmonton Oilers as a fourth-line centre/penalty killer/13th forward, depending on his training camp work.
Hamblin, who played 31 Oilers games last season before returning to Bakersfield, just changed his number from 57 to 52 to honour his late mom Gina, who died of pancreatic cancer when she was 52 in 2017.
“This number is a symbol I’ve used over the years as a reminder of my mum’s support and help, getting me to where I am, making me the person I am today,” Hamblin said.
“It’s also a symbol of how tough she was. If she can get through that with a smile on her face then I can get through a hard workout or a hard skate.”
Hockey dads get most of the thank yous when players are drafted or make the NHL with the moms left behind, which certainly is wrong considering they drive their kids to practices, too, make sure they were eating right and maybe wash their gear.
Unfair? “Yeah sometimes, it’s not one-sided,” Hamblin said.
“But I try to make sure it’s the opposite, maybe I talk about her too much. The number is a reminder of the village of people behind me that have sacrificed for me to do what I do what I do now,” he said.
Hamblin was given No. 57 at his first Oilers training camp. He didn’t ask for it.
“Now it’s a good time to change,” said Hamblin, who wore No. 11 in Bakersfield.
Hamblin had a good go here as an energy fourth-liner last season in limited minutes before going back to Bakersfield, where he couldn’t work his way back to the Oilers because he was hurt.
“I tore my adductor muscle in a game in Texas, a nothing play, my skate got caught in somebody else’s skate,” he said.
He killed lots of penalties in Bakersfield and, with two of the six Oilers PK forwards, Warren Foegele and Ryan McLeod, now gone, there’s certainly room for him in that role., Farmhand Lane Pederson probably is in that mix, too. Both are making $775,000, so low money on a tight salary cap.
Adam Henrique might take one of those spots, but assistant coach Mark Stuart — who is in charge of the PK — used three pairs of forwards (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Derek Ryan, Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark, Foegele and McLeod) to rousing success, especially in the playoffs, where they only gave up four PP goals in 25 games.
Hamblin is better prepared now than he was last season, when he was thrown into the NHL fire.
“I know better what my (NHL) job is, the things I have to do,” said Hamblin, and certainly his ability to be in short-handed situations will help his NHL case.
“I’ve always prided myself in penalty-killing in junior and through my time in Bakersfield. I think there’s an opportunity on the PK. I would like to prove to the coaching staff I can be a reliable guy doing that,” he said.
The bottom line with role players is if they can check and also score 10 goals or get 20 points, all the better.
“I’ve always been a two-way player, defence first,” he said. “But what I think I learned last year is you have to make plays (create some offence).”
Goodbye Nemo
Markus Niemelainen, a solid open-ice hitter in his 43 Oilers games who eventually was passed in the organizational pecking order by the better defender Vincent Desharnais, has moved to Eisbaren Berlin in Germany.
“We loved Nemo. He was always a guy who hit big, missed big,” his former teammate Hamblin joked. “He would either run a guy through the wall or run himself through the wall. We were always concerned he would miss and hurt himself.”
With Niemelainen’s size and robust play, you wonder why some other NHL team, far from contending status, didn’t sign him to a two-way deal this summer.
He battled injuries last season and also had some family issues which weighed on him, but he could still be a depth D man on some NHL team’s organizational chart. Instead, the Finn is back in Europe.
This ‘n’ that
If Darnell Nurse misses time in exhibition games because he’s not quite ready after playing through an injury in last spring’s long playoff run, that disrupts the plan to find him a right-shot partner. Not ideal … If Connor McDavid plays any more than three of the eight pre-season games we’d be surprised … Former Edmonton Oil Kings D-man Mark Pysyk has a camp tryout in Anaheim and has a fair shot of getting a two-way contract because there’s a shortage of right-shot D on the roster. There are only veteran Radko Gudas and young Olen Zellweger with another righty PTO candidate Gus Lindstrom … There have been 27 PTOs so far for players looking for work on NHL teams, but nothing on UFA defencemen Justin Schultz and Kevin Shattenkirk, still looking for one-year contracts before camp … Newly hired Oilers European development coach Tobias Salmelainen’s brother Tony, the ex-Oilers draft pick, is an amateur scout for Toronto. He’s based in Sweden … Oilers 2023 first pick defenceman Beau Akey shone at last fall’s YoungStars in Penticton, but that shoulder problem that eventually required surgery last November as a junior in Barrie actually bugged him his entire draft season. If Akey has a good first two months in Barrie, he has a fair shot at getting invited to the U20 selection camp for the world junior tournament in Ottawa over Christmas … Seven Oil Kings WHL players are at NHL team’s rookie camps; Gracyn Sawchyn (Florida draft), foreign imports Adam Jecho (Blues draft), Miroslav Holinka (Leafs draft), Parker Alcos (Canucks draft) and free-agent invites-goalie Kolby Hay (Kings), Marshall Finnie (Leafs) and D Rhys Pederson (Oilers).