The Oilers tweeted out this morning that Iiro Pakarinen cleared waivers and was then assigned to the Bakersfield Condors.

With the fourth line finding some chemistry in recent games, even chipping in with three goals on Thursday night, the writing seemed to be on the wall for Iiro Pakarinen. In 18 games played, the Finnish forward was only able to collect a single assist and wasn’t really much of a factor whenever he was in the lineup. Iiro was playing anywhere from 8-10 minutes per night and he needed to find a way to contribute more than one point. As Jujhar Khaira continues to play well and Zack Kassian regains his scoring touch, Pakarinen was the odd man out in that final trio to play with Mark Letestu.

Pakarinen’s case to play didn’t get any better either when the Oilers added Nathan Walker, a left handed depth forward, with a waiver claim from the Washington Capitals. Combined with the chemistry that’s building on the fourth line, the Walker addition pushes Pakarinen further down the depth chart and out of the Oilers lineup. Now that he’s cleared waivers, he’ll (hopefully) add a veteran presence to a struggling Bakersfield roster that could really use the help.

Do we care that Pakarinen got sent down? At first, I was concerned about who would translate for Jesse Puljujarvi and help make his transition a little bit easier, but then I found out Yohann Auvitu speaks about 200 languages including Finnish. If the Oilers don’t even need Pakarinen to be a translator then exactly what was he doing do to stick around? Then again, I guess that’s why his name popped up in trade rumours this week.

 

Source: Edmonton Oilers, Official Twitter Account, 12/02/2017, 10:28am MST