Well, this game could not have started any worse for the Edmonton Oilers. Before many people were even able to tune into this game out west, the Oilers were down by multiple goals and learning about some even more disastrous news as Connor McDavid has been ruled out of the remainder of tonight’s game after sustaining an injury extremely early into the game.
What happened, you may ask? On his first shift, he took a fall while rushing into the offensive zone and crashed feet-first into the boards. On standing up to resume play, he looked off but tried to push through. Shortly after, you could tell something was wrong with his left leg and he was not putting much weight or pushing off on that foot. Although he skated to the bench and tried to walk it off, he went to the locker room pretty quickly and was soon ruled out of the remainder of the game.
For a player whose speed is one of his primary assets, lower body and knee or ankle injuries are especially worrisome.
Immediate impact on the Oilers lineup
Losing their number one centre creates a massive shift in the Oilers lines going into the game. With this being such an early injury, the burden of ice time will fall on Leon Draisaitl. He will likely be double shifting for most of this game to keep the top two lines as potent as possible.
We could potentially see Ryan Nugent-Hopkins shift over to centre and allow Jeff Skinner or Vasily Podkolzin to play wing in the top six.
On the power play, Viktor Arvidsson jumped up to the number one unit shortly after McDavid’s departure from the game.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
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