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Information from Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday morning because the membership has signed farmhand defenceman Philip Kemp to a 2-year, 2-way contract on the new NHL minimal wage of $775,000. The minor-league wage has not but been disclosed.

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Kemp was drafted by the Oilers within the seventh spherical of the 2017 NHL Draft. Since then he has largely adopted the trail of 2016 seventh-rounder Vincent Desharnais: a number of years of faculty hockey and a number of other extra within the minors steadily growing his sport.

In Kemp’s case he performed 3 years for Yale College in NCAA earlier than being frozen out of his senior 12 months by the COVID virus which resulted within the 2020-21 Ivy League season being cancelled. That’s when the Oilers signed him, loaning him out to Vasby IK of Sweden’s HockeyAllsvenskan within the fall of 2020 whereas North American hockey was shut down, then bringing him to Bakersfield to play the shortened season.

Since then he’s performed 2 extra full seasons at Bakersfield, posting boxcar stats of 55 GP, 3-6-9, +6 in 2021-22, then 71 GP, 6-15-21, +12 within the season simply handed. The latter represented profession highs in each targets and assists at any degree of hockey since age 14, as per his participant web page at EliteProspects.com.

The orange line denotes that time in his profession Kemp was drafted by Edmonton.

An enormous (6’3, 212), proper shot defenceman, the 24-year-old Kemp has at all times been referred to as a defence-first blueliner. Value noting his offence took a major rise this previous season (just like Desharnais the prior marketing campaign). In each instances, that surge in offence was fully achieved at even energy.

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He’s famend for his management, having served as captain of two separate US Nationwide Growth Groups. He was additionally slated to be captain at Yale earlier than that senior marketing campaign went up in smoke.

Kemp has persistently ranked simply inside the highest 20 in our annual Cult of Hockey prospect scores, touchdown precisely on #20 in our most up-to-date evaluation in the summertime of 2022.

As we wrote at the moment:

Sometimes, although, such late alternatives include some type of deadly flaw that should in some way be overcome. Within the case of Phil Kemp, it was absolutely the dreaded “skating a difficulty”. It actually was when he attended his first summer time growth camp inside days of being drafted; his straight-ahead pace wasn’t unhealthy however he clearly had lots of work to do on a number of the finer factors of pivots and crossovers.

Progress has actually been made on this space over time, and the participant has discovered easy methods to survive and even thrive on the AHL degree. However that vital side of his sport has by no means been seen as a energy by this observer, and will surely be examined had been he to make the following step.

Final summer time we forecast Kemp’s fast future as follows:

Expectations for 2022-23: One other full season on the blue line in Bakersfield honing his craft within the professionals. Presumably a cup of NHL espresso for the 23-year-old if issues break a sure manner, however for now he’s a great distance down the depth chart to anticipate a sudden breakthrough.

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Performed out just about t
hat manner, with the surge of offensive output being essentially the most notable growth. That was possible one of many driving forces of his receiving a second contract.

Extremely revered by his Bakersfield coaches Jay Woodcroft and, later, Colin Chaulk, he nonetheless tasks as an actual strong AHL participant with risk of a call-up if issues break the best manner. He’ll not be waiver exempt within the fall, although growing gamers of his ilk routinely cross via the waiver course of on the finish of coaching camp.

Kemp is the primary Restricted Free Agent to be renewed because the finish of the playoffs, with honourable point out to fellow minor-league d-man Cam Dineen who was renewed for a 12 months in April. Simply 6 RFA’s stay within the system: Evan Bouchard, Ryan McLeod, Klim Kostin, Raphael Lavoie, Noah Philp, and Olivier Rodrigue. Fairly good likelihood all 6 get prolonged, although the negotiations with the primary 3 are apt to be somewhat more durable than for the latter 3, or Philip Kemp himself for that matter. However you gotta begin someplace.

The signing will increase to 32 the variety of gamers signed to 2023-24 contracts on Edmonton’s 50-man listing.

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