Connor McDavid sustained a minor ankle injury Monday night in the tough loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The current estimation is that McDavid will be out for two to three weeks. While this news could have been a lot worse, it’s a tough hand to be dealt after starting slowly this season. McDavid and the Oilers appeared to be turning it around when the news about McDavid broke.
Last year’s record
The Oilers are often accused of being a two player team, sometimes even a one player team, so how have they fared without McDavid in the past? McDavid has actually missed a very small amount of time over his career. Last year he missed six games and that was the most he has ever missed since his rookie year injury. This is the first time in a long time that the Oilers will have to play for a significant stretch without McDavid. The Oilers have eight more games before three weeks are over, going 2–6 for example, would make them 7–11–1 at the quarter point of the season, a big hill to climb.
Looking at the games McDavid missed last season, the first two games came within the horrible 2–9–1 start the Oilers had, they lost 7–4 to the Minnesota Wild and 3–0 to the New York Rangers.
Then the next three were late in the season. They beat the Vegas Golden Knights 5–1, lost to the Arizona Coyotes 3–2, and the Vancouver Canucks 3–1. Then McDavid sat out in the last game of the season just for recuperating purposes and the Oilers lost 5–1 to the Colorado Avalanche.
All in all they went 1–5, here are some stats from the games:
| Opponent | Result | Score | Shots For | Shots Against | Corsi % (5v5) | xGF (5v5) | SCF (5v5) |
| Minnesota Wild | Loss | 7-4 | 28 | 32 | 54.12% | 2.56 | 22 |
| New York Rangers | Loss | 3-0 | 29 | 32 | 55.45% | 3.46 | 31 |
| Vegas Golden Knights | Win | 5-1 | 25 | 18 | 49.53% | 2.6 | 25 |
| Arizona Coyotes | Loss | 3-2 | 40 | 28 | 63.39% | 3.67 | 32 |
| Vancouver Canucks | Loss | 3-1 | 33 | 27 | 55.43% | 2.42 | 24 |
| Colorado Avalanche | Loss | 5-1 | 26 | 27 | 62.5% | 2.97 | 23 |
| YEAR AVERAGE | N/A | N/A | 33.8 | 28.1 | 55.17% | 3.2 | 32.36 |
Obviously that is a really bad record without McDavid and is not encouraging whatsoever. The underlying stats themselves aren’t awful though, which makes it seem like the losses were more bad luck than otherwise but it doesn’t really matter, if you lose, you lose. In most categories they are below average but are within the neighbourhood. The one area where there is a decent sized discrepancy is xGF, which makes sense considering how much offense McDavid generates.
Needless to say though, based on these results and how the game against the Blue Jackets went after McDavid left the ice, there is good reason to be worried about the Oilers in McDavid’s absence.
The evidence last night against the Predators
Against expectations, the Oilers might have played the best game against the Nashville Predators, or at least the most encouraging game, considering the situation, of their season so far.
If I didn’t know McDavid was hurt, I might think he borrowed Leon Draisaitl’s jersey and played last night. Draisaitl looked absolutely spectacular! He posted two goals and an assist, his second goal looked exactly like a McDavid classic, beating the defender wide with a nice move then tucking it in a tiny space short side.
The entire Vasily Podkolzin-Draisaitl-Viktor Arvidsson line was terrific. They dominated play throughout the game and the first goal was a perfect hockey goal. Podkolzin stole the puck from Alex Carrier, fed the puck to Draisaitl in front of the net who was in perfect position to shoot himself, but passed to Arvidsson on the far post, for the easiest goal he’ll ever score. That was a coach’s dream goal, exactly the way hockey should be played, a little hard work and a little finesse.
Podkolzin deserves a shoutout unto himself. He fought hard for the puck all night long then mixed it up with Jeremy Lauzon in a thrilling fight. Podkolzin dropped Lauzon like a sack of flour with one of the cleanest punches you’ll ever see in a hockey fight. Jack Michaels noted that Podkolzin wasn’t leaving the top six anytime soon and I fully agree.
After a 54-goal season, Zach Hyman was finally able to plot his first of the season on a breakaway thanks to a sweet ice-length pass from Darnell Nurse. With McDavid out, Hyman will need to step up offensively and this was a great start.
Changes without McDavid
One interesting point to note was that, in the absence of McDavid, the first power play consisted of Draisaitl, Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Evan Bouchard, and Mattias Ekholm. The Oilers would usually send out four forwards and one defenceman instead of two. The power play didn’t convert but had only one minute and 10 seconds of power play time. While this is not a common strategy in the NHL, the Oilers have the defencemen to make it work. It will be interesting to see if this becomes the status quo while McDavid is away. If this is the first powr play unit, does Nurse play defence on the second unit?
Lastly, Calvin Pickard was very solid, giving up only one goal on 27 shots. All in all the Oilers looked very encouraging without McDavid. Smart, accurate passes, a punishing forecheck, as well as just general hard work were the keys to the win in my opinion. The win comes against a struggling Predators team who really didn’t do themselves any favours whatsoever so it should be taken with a grain of salt, but a win is a win. It will be interesting to see how the Oilers do against a tougher opponent like the New Jersey Devils or the Golden Knights on the 4th and the 6th of November.
stats from NHL.com, and naturalstattrick.com
