March 2, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg

With Friday’s NHL trade deadline looming, the Edmonton Oilers are starting to do some internal shuffling of money to prepare themselves for the week that lies ahead and the post-trade deadline sprint to the finish line. They placed Andrew Mangiapane and Alec Regula on waivers on Sunday. They cleared waivers on Monday.

In corresponding moves on Monday, Mangiapane and Regula were sent to the Bakersfield Condors, and Josh Samanski and Ike Howard were recalled.

The #Oilers have recalled forwards Josh Samanski & Isaac Howard from the @Condors. https://t.co/EODLDIL2QK

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 2, 2026

The Oilers’ biggest 2025 summer free agent signing has been on the trade block for quite a while now as it is believed that Manigapane seeks greener pastures with an elevated role and more playing time than he’s getting in Edmonton. Mangiapane has been a healthy scratch on multiple occasions since the reports of him being open to a trade surfaced.

Related: 2025 Oilers Free Agent Frenzy Wrap

Alec Regula was sent to the Bakersfield Condors on a conditioning stint during the Olympic break because he hasn’t played an NHL game since January 20. He’s clearly the team’s seventh defenceman. Oilers GM Stan Bowman claimed Regula on waivers last season because he has a history with Regula and knows him well as a player, but he hasn’t been able to grab hold of a permanent spot in the lineup on a nightly basis. His foot speed is a big issue, and I don’t think he’s been the same player since suffering a concussion in the Oilers’ second game of the season on October 11, 2025.

It would be easy for people to read into these roster moves. People will be quick to think that Mangiapane being waived means that there’s nobody willing to take him in a trade or that Samanski or Howard will be with the Oilers for the rest of the season. I don’t think any of those statements are true. Let’s take a closer look at the cap implications of these moves and what they might suggest.

According to David Pagnotta, Janmark will have surgery on Wednesday. He will miss the rest of the regular season, which will make him ineligible for the NHL playoffs. The Oilers can place him on LTIR and use that cap relief to add another player for the stretch drive and the playoffs safely.

Here’s a quick refresher on how LTIR works. When a team places a player on LTIR, the value of the player’s cap hit is added to the team’s current cap hit to create a new upper limit. For example, if a player with a $1 million cap hit gets placed on LTIR when a team’s cap hit is at $95 million, that would allow the team to spend up to $96 million. In this example, the team’s new upper limit is only $500k over the $95.5 million league salary cap. The team got the full $1 million in LTIR cap relief, but THAT VALUE IS NOT ADDED TO THE LEAGUE SALARY CAP.

That’s why teams with players that need to go onto LTIR usually do some roster shuffling before placing the player on LTIR. The goal is to get the active roster as close to the league salary cap as possible before placing the player on LTIR in order to push their new cap limit as high as possible.

The Oilers have $10,969 in cap space as of Monday morning according to PuckPedia, which is already quite close to the cap. 

The interesting thing about these moves is that removing Mangiapane ($1.15M) and Regula ($775k) from the roster then recalling Samanski ($975k) and Howard ($950k) is a financial wash.

Those moves would have exactly ZERO impact on cap spending. They would not do more to maximize the LTIR relief that they will get from placing Janmark onto LTIR. That alone isn’t the reason for these moves.

Samanski and Howard both have potential performance bonuses in their contracts. Since they were not on the season opening roster submission, the average value of their potential performance bonuses for every year remaining in their contracts is considered a cap hit reduction if they are called up while the team is using LTIR relief. Essentially, Samanski’s cap hit becomes $1,462,500 and Howard’s becomes $1,616,667 in that scenario.

However, according to PuckPedia, those cap reductions would not be applied if Samanski and Howard were to be on the active roster before Janmark gets placed on LTIR.

Recalling them before placing Janmark on LTIR will allow the Oilers to have them on the roster down the stretch if they so choose without the performance bonus related cap space reductions.

The #LetsGoOilers made these roster moves & put Janmark on LTIR. They can now add $1.45M in cap hit, & Samanski/Howard will only take up their cap hits (not their AAV which includes performance bonuses) while the team is on LTIRhttps://t.co/onpGRVAQKN https://t.co/LibxgtDuQc

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) March 2, 2026

I don’t think that being recalled now means that Samanski and Howard will be with the Oilers for the rest of the season. I see this as pre-trade deadline cap gymnastics. Making these moves now simply gives the Oilers the option to have Samanski and/or Howard on the roster at their normal cap hits with Janmark on LTIR at any point going forward this season.

Players need to be on their AHL rosters on NHL trade deadline day to be eligible for the AHL playoffs. I would imagine that the Oilers would want Samanski and Howard to be eligible for the AHL playoffs. Their being on the AHL roster at the NHL trade deadline wouldn’t preclude them from NHL playoff eligibility, so they could still be in the mix for those spots. I fail to see why the Oilers wouldn’t want Samanski and Howard to be eligible for the AHL playoffs. If the Oilers suffer an early exit and the Condors go on a run, then Samanski and Howard should 100% be a part of that Condors run.

NHL teams get up to four recalls after the trade deadline, up to three of which would be eligible to play in the NHL playoffs. The Oilers sent Dylan Holloway down to Bakersfield on March 7, 2024, which was the day before that season’s trade deadline. That ensured his eligibility for the AHL playoffs. He was recalled late in the regular season, and he played in every playoff game for the Oilers on their run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. This situation could play out again with Samanski and/or Howard, although I would suggest that it is FAR more likely that it happens with Samanski than with Howard.

Regardless, I would not expect Samanski and Howard to be on the NHL roster on Friday.

The Oilers and the Condors both play on Tuesday and Friday this week. I expect that both Samanski and Howard will be available for the Oilers on Tuesday, but I expect that they will both play for the Condors on Friday. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.

Having them on the NHL roster on Friday and beyond would limit the Oilers’ ability to add at the deadline. That $1,925,000 will be useful to the Oilers.

I don’t think Manigapane being waived and buried now necessarily means that he will be buried in Bakersfield for the rest of the season. For the Oilers to be able to do what they’re doing with Samanski and Howard, someone whose cap hit is over $1.15 million (the maximum amount of one player’s contract that can be buried in the AHL) had to be buried. 

The player closest to that value while being over it is Ty Emberson, but they couldn’t move another defenceman off the roster beyond Regula because they only have six defencemen on the active roster after these moves.

Janmark is the second closest. They can’t waive an injured player, so he wasn’t an option. Jack Roslovic and Adam Henrique are the next closest on the list, but they both have no-movement clauses, so they can’t be waived without their approval.

Mangiapane is the next player up the list. He truly was the player with the closest cap hit to $1.15 million while being over that value that could be buried in this situation, so he was the one that had to be waived and buried to make these moves work for the Oilers. The trade rumours surrounding him are likely more of a coincidence than a factor in his being waived. The fact that he needs a wake up call is an added bonus.

While it’s easy to look at Mangiapane’s situation and say the Oilers have chosen to just bury him in the AHL for the rest of the season, I wouldn’t make any proclamations about Mangiapane’s future right now. He could still be moved before Friday’s deadline, and the acquiring team would have the added bonus of having the flexibility to bury him in the minors without risking losing him on waivers for 30 days as of Monday. There’s also a very real chance that he hasn’t played his last game in orange and blue this season.

Basically, what I’m saying is don’t read much into all of these moves. Oilers GM Stan Bowman essentially confirmed all of what I have said in this piece in his summation these roster moves when speaking to the media today, calling them “transactional” moves related to the salary cap.

These moves leave the Oilers with $3,364,505 in cap space to work with at the trade deadline assuming none of Mangiapane, Regula, Samanski, and Howard are on the roster on Friday and Mangiapane does not get traded. If Mangiapane was to be traded, then the Oilers would have $5,814,505 to spend on Friday.

If Samanski and Howard are not on the roster on Friday as I suspect, then the Oilers will have to do something to address the forward shortage. They could bring Mangiapane back up for Friday’s game, give Roby Jarventie a look, give Quinn Hutson another game, or trade for a new forward.

A third-line centre that can produce offence is a need, but it might not be the top priority right now. At least one forward will take up a portion of the available cap space though. Whether that forward is a current Oiler or not remains to be seen.

The Oilers will have six defencemen on the active roster once Regula is gone. That fact seems to support the recent speculation that has suggested that the Oilers’ focus is on acquiring someone that can play defence on the right side, whether it be a right-handed defenceman or a left-handed one that can play the right side. Ideally, that defenceman would be able to play on the second pairing. Jake Walman isn’t thriving as a lefty playing the right side, but the Oilers seem willing to take another stab at that approach if a trade for a right-handed defenceman doesn’t pan out.

There aren’t any NHL-ready options that I would trust in the playoffs in Bakersfield right now, especially on the right side. That includes Regula. Josh Brown isn’t a justifiable option, and Beau Akey isn’t NHL ready. Akey is also a prospect that has high odds of being traded since he’s one of just two Oilers prospects remaining from the Ken Holland era (Matvei Petrov is the other). Riley Stillman has NHL experience, but not on the right side. Ditto for Cam Dineen, but his NHL experience is minimal. Atro Leppanen and Damien Carfagna are not NHL options at this time, although both have promise on the left side. Adding another NHL-quality defender on the right side seems like a must.

I’ll have more on potential trade targets for the Oilers in a separate piece later this week.