A laundry list of injuries has pulled the end of the Edmonton Oilers season into disarray. The bunch of inactive Oilers is led by superstars Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, who have missed the team’s last two and eight games respectively.
They’re joined by a seemingly endless list of impactful Oilers on the sideline — including starting goaltender Stuart Skinner (six missed games), top-four defensemen John Klingberg (five games) and Mattias Ekholm (six games) and freshly-injured top-six centerman Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.
On top of that, Edmonton has only received one game out of trade deadline acquisition Trent Frederic, and continues to grapple with uncertainty around Evander Kane.
But with so much to bear through, Edmonton isn’t expecting the injuries to carry into the postseason. Head coach Kris Knoblauch shared in a Wednesday press conference that he expects to get “everybody” back from injury before the end of the season. He further specified that McDavid and Draisaitl will remain out on a day-to-day basis, up to a week.
That timeframe puts the pair of superstars on track to return just ahead of Edmonton’s final games of the regular season, which take place on Monday and April 16.
The Oilers haven’t technically clinched a playoff spot just yet — but with a six-point advantage over the rest of the Pacific Division, a locked-in spot is a matter of when, not if. That will make their half-strength run through the end of the season a bit easier to withstand, though the Oilers will still be icing an unprecedented lineup on Wednesday night.
They’ll be without eight routine NHL players including Kane. That equates to $42.2M in cap space that will be left on the shelf, as shared by Jason Gregor of Sports 1440.
The decimated Oilers will move forward with rookies Noah Philp and Olivier Rodrigue respectively filling the role of fourth-line center and backup goaltender. Second-year defenseman Ty Emberson will also stick in the Oilers lineup with this news, giving him a chance to continue the search for his first goal of the season.
Emberson has 10 assists in 71 games this season, while Philp has recorded two assists in the first 12 games of his NHL career this year. Rodrigue has also played in the first two games of his NHL career this season, and has 25 saves on 29 shots (0.862 save percentage) and a 0-1-0 record.
Together, the trio of young additions will look to push Edmonton past a hard-nosed St. Louis Blues team, fresh off the end of a 12-game win-streak, on Wednesday night. It’ll be rewarded with a lighter game against the San Jose Sharks on Friday, but then close the year with matchups against the top-ranked Winnipeg Jets, playoff competition Los Angeles Kings and another match against San Jose.
