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Philip Broberg finally got his wish.

Having been loaned to the American Hockey League’s Bakersfield Condors Thursday, the discontented defenceman will finally get to play.

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Granted, being loaded up on minutes in the AHL isn’t his first choice — he’s an eighth-overall pick who has visions of being a regular in the NHL by now — but this is the best thing for him.

Broberg’s agent should be breathing a big sigh of relief and the 22-year-old defenceman should be thrilled at the prospect of finally getting a chance to roll up his sleeves and show what he can do.

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If he’s going to be a player one day, this is where it starts.

Go down, play a ton of minutes in a lot of situations and do the growing and developing necessary to force the Oilers’ hand. Let Ben Gleason come up and take the seat for NHL money while Broberg hones his game.

Ideally, he stays down for two or three months and comes back hardened, battle-tested, hungry and ready to do the same thing Evan Bouchard did when he got his opportunity. The same thing Vincent Desharnais did when he got his opportunity.

You don’t ask for ice time. You don’t demand it on Twitter. You take it.

“When he does have the opportunity, it’s being ready for it,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said about his recent conversations with Broberg.

“He needs to play hockey. There will be a time in the season when we will need him and the only way he’s going to help us is if he’s ready to play And the only way he’ll be ready play is if he has been playing.”

This is something that probably should have happened a few weeks ago rather than healthy-scratching him for 12 of the last 14 games, but it’s not the end of the world, just the life cycle of a young defenceman.

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If the Oilers had been playing the same kind of hockey all season that they’re playing right now and had room to breathe in the standings, they could give Broberg an opportunity to develop in the NHL and suffer through the usual young-defenceman growing pains.

But they can’t. Because they started so poorly and are still trying to claw their way back to a wild-card spot, they can’t afford even a mini slump. They have to go with their best six guys and right now, based on a five-game winning streak in which they’ve outscored the other teams 27-8, those six guys are obvious.

“Right now were’ve got six defenceman who are playing really well,” said Knoblauch, who has no reason to change that mix.

The “put him in there and see what you’ve got” theory doesn’t hold when you’re in 13th place in the West trying to catch your season from behind.

It also doesn’t help Broberg’s case that he did play a lot at the start of the season, eight of Edmonton’s first nine games, and the team is 2-7-1 this year when he’s is in the lineup and 8-5-0 when he sits.

A long stretch in the minors is exactly what Broberg needs. Forget about being a first-rounder and forget about whatever schedule he had in his mind about where he should be at this point. The most important thing in his world right now is ice time and he’s about to get a lot of it.

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He can also learn a lot from Desharnais and Bouchard in this situation. 

Bouchard spent his first full season as a pro in the minors and his second season collecting dust in Canadian Division press boxes because of border-crossing red tape and quarantines. They didn’t want to send him down knowing he couldn’t be recalled quickly in an emergency, and they didn’t play him much. So he sat for 42 of 56 games.

He turned out just fine, playing 186 of Edmonton’s last 187 games and emerging as one of the better offensive defencemen in the league.

Desharnais spent three full seasons in the minors without getting so much as a sniff at the NHL. He didn’t make a peep. He lowered his head, worked hard, created a dimension the Oilers needed and when he finally got his opportunity he forced the coaches to give him more and more ice.

And, boom, a player drafted and developed by the organization zipped past Broberg on the depth chart and is a solid NHL regular, amid cries that the Oilers can’t draft and develop players.

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“I really appreciate how well (Desharnais) defends,” said Knoblauch. “He’s got a really good stick, he’s physical, he makes it hard to play against. Other teams know he’s out there and they don’t get any free passes against him which is very important.

“With a bigger defenceman getting comfortable in the league, it’s the puck skills and making passes which is very important, and I think he’s been doing a great job of that lately. He’s transporting the puck really nicely, making high-percentage plays, not getting into trouble. For a third-pair defenceman, he’s been phenomenal.”

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