Bakersfield Back To Their Winning Ways

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Coming off a pair of impressive victories on home ice back on Feb. 19-20, the last thing the Bakersfield Condors players wanted was a long layoff.

Due to the postponement of a scheduled game against the Barracuda in San Jose on Feb. 25 they got just that - a 10-day stretch without a single game.

But there was absolutely no rust in the Condors game on Wednesday night as they proved to be a rude host to the visiting Barracuda in Mechanic’s Bank Arena, racing out to a 3-0 first-period lead and soaring to a 6-0 victory.

The team that started the season 0-5 has now won three straight and outscored opponents 14-1 over that stretch. Oh yeah, goaltender Stuart Skinner, who started the season on the Edmonton Oilers taxi squad, has been in net for all three of those wins.

“That whole thing with the Covid thing with San Jose was tough, that was a lot of time to practice,” said Skinner, who has two straight shutouts.

We all know practice is not near as fun as a game but Condors head coach Jay Woodcroft said the extra practice time was beneficial.

“I was a little bit worried about the amount of days between our games, but the one thing it did was allow us to get in a lot of really good practice time,” Woodcoft said. “Our team practices hard. There’s zero complaints from the coaching staff. Our team really, really works at their craft."

“It was nice for us because some teams, like the team we played tonight, have been together since December. They had no breaks and have been able to build their game plan or their identity. For us, we’ve just been together since Jan. 25. For us, that practice time allowed us to continue to lay bricks in our foundation and I thought we saw the result of that [Wednesday night].”

That result was a season-high 14 players with points, led by fourth-year pro Luke Esposito with a pair of goals. The undrafted Harvard grad now leads the Condors with four goals.

“He’s been a real good player for us all year, for that matter, the three years I’ve been the coach of the team,” Woodcroft said. “It’s just been the epitome of what we want a Bakersfield Condor to be. He’s hard working, he’s diligent, he’s professional, serious about his craft, works at it on a daily basis and to see him get rewarded by scoring some goals I’m quite happy for him. I think he has underrated skill."

“It’s nice to see him get rewarded, but that line of (Brad) Malone, Esposito and (Joe) Gambardella, man do they ever set the work ethic tone for our group and I put them up there against most lines in the American Hockey League. They’ve been excellent.”

Notes

Max Gildon (who was assigned to the Condors by the Florida Panthers last week) played in his first AHL game. The 2017 third-round pick by the Panthers dropped his gloves in the first. He had one shot on goal and finished the night plus two.

Forward Ostap Safin (Oilers 3rd round pick in 2017) played his first AHL game for the Condors since 2018 when he joined the Condors after juniors. He played with the Wichita Thunder last season (35 points (16g) in 54 games. He had an assist on Wednesday, feeding veteran Seth Griffith on a 2-on-1 for the final goal of the game.