Oilers prospects Matvei Petrov, Jake Chiasson, and Max Wanner set to start CHL playoffs

The Canadian Hockey League’s regular season has wrapped up and the playoffs are set to kick off on Thursday night.

Three Edmonton Oilers prospects will be playing in the playoffs: Matvei Petrov, Jake Chiasson, and Max Wanner. Here’s a summary of how each of their seasons went and what to expect from their teams in the coming weeks…

The Oilers selected Petrov in the sixth round of the 2021 draft after a strong season playing in the MHL, Russia’s top junior league. Petrov had been the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 CHL Priority Draft by the North Bay Battalion but he didn’t join the team until the following season because of the pandemic.

In his first season in North America, Petrov raised his prospect status significantly by scoring 40 goals and 90 points for the Battalion over 63 games. His second season in the OHL saw a decline in goal-scoring but similar production, as Petrov scored 27 goals and 93 points over 65 games in 2022-23. Petrov’s 93 points was good for eighth in the OHL in scoring.

The Battalion finished the season with an impressive 48-17-3 record, the second-best in the league, and are a good bet to go deep into the playoffs. They’re the No. 2 seed and will face the No. 7 seeded Mississauga Steelheads in the first round.

Chiasson was Edmonton’s fourth-round pick in the 2021 draft. His pre-draft season was limited to just 23 games because of the pandemic and he played just 20 games in his post-draft season because of a freak injury that was suffered during Oilers rookie camp in the fall. The hope for Chiasson in 2022-23 was that he could stay healthy and get some games under his belt and all went according to plan.

Chiasson put up 10 goals and 28 points in 37 games this season playing for the Brandon Wheat Kings. He was traded mid-season to the Saskatoon Blades for their Memorial Cup push and he scored 10 goals and 30 points in 33 games with his new team. All told, Chiasson scored 58 points over 70 games for the Wheat Kings and Blades.

The Blades finished the season with the fourth-best record in the WHL at 48-15-5. They’ll go up against the Regina Pats in the first round of the playoffs. Though the Blades finished 29 points ahead of the Pats in the standings, Connor Bedard could take over the series for Regina.

The Oilers took Wanner in the seventh round of the 2021 draft despite him only having 22 games played at the WHL level at the time. Wanner broke out in his post-draft season in 2021-22 with 23 points over 55 regular-season games and seven points in nine playoff games for the Moose Jaw Warriors.

Wanner was putting together a very good performance on Moose Jaw’s blueline this season but he was among four players who got suspended indefinitely in February for an off-ice incident. In March, the WHL announced that Wanner and the other three players would be suspended for the rest of the regular season but that they would be eligible to return for the playoffs.

The Warriors posted a 41-24-3 record and will go up against the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the first round of the playoffs. It’s a No. 4 vs No. 5 seed matchup that could go either way.