Former Oilers First Round Draft Pick Placed on Waivers by Utah Hockey Club

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Liam McCormick
October 25, 2024 (12:33)

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This afternoon, news broke from NHL insiders that the Utah Hockey Club has placed forward Kailer Yamamoto on waivers to be assigned to the AHL.

Yamamoto joined Utah in training camp on a professional tryout contract, and put together a decent preseason to earn himself a two-way contract. He appeared in three games this season, playing a high of only 11:00 minutes of ice time, recording no points, and having an on-ice rating of -1.

The Edmonton Oilers selected Kailer Yamamoto in the first round in the 2017 Draft, and he went to play parts of 6 seasons with the team. Yamamoto had a career best year in 2020-21 while playing mostly with Connor McDavid, scoring 20 goals and 41 points in 81 games. Yamamoto had promise as a scoring forward prior to those years, but eventually just lost his scoring touch, and the Oilers traded him to offload his contract to the Detroit Red Wings.

After an extremely tough season with the Seattle Kraken last year and now struggling to make his way onto the Utah Hockey Club's roster, it's looking like Yamamoto will be hard pressed to find another NHL opportunity if not filling in for injuries. Looking at his NHL career as a whole now after 306 career games, Yamamoto has only really produced next to McDavid. His lack of size and physicality does no favours in the bottom six either.

It seems pretty unlikely that any team would file a claim on Yamamoto, unless a rebuilding team sees potential for him higher in their lineup. It will be the first time he's bounced down to the AHL in 6 years. Hopefully Yamamoto will be able to work his way back to proving himself in the NHL, but at this point, he does perform like an AHLer.