Well, here it is folks, Connor McDavid is going to miss some time. Oilers GM/President Peter Chiarelli announced to the media early on Wednesday that McDavid will miss months with a broken clavicle that will require surgery.
The injury is a massive blow to the Oilers and to McDavid. Connor had adapted so well to the NHL and was truly dominating this league just 12 games into his career. Now he must go through a grueling rehab and get back to speed while the grind of the season continues on. Tough break for sure.
From a team standpoint, the Edmonton Oilers just lost their best player. McDavid was playing tremendous and gave the team a second scoring line that was simply dominating. The Oilers attack on the power-play and at 5-on-5 is considerably worse than it was last night.
How Do They Cope?:
Jordan Eberle will return on Friday night and that will certainly help the Oilers. That said, they just lost their top line center and that’s certainly a massive blow. The Oilers will need players to step up, mainly Anton Lander, Leon Draisaitl and Teddy Purcell. This team needs to have that next man up mentality.
If the Oilers can play their system and have guys step up, they’ll be able to hold the fort for some time and stay in the race, hopefully until McDavid is able to return.
There are ways to cope, and while this injury certainly sucks, it can’t be the end of the Oilers season. Now we will see what this team is truly made of, will they come together and rally, or rollover and die? I’m VERY interested to see.
Final Thoughts:
I wish the best to McDavid in his recovery. Missing months is a massive blow and it will no doubt have an impact on this player. I’m not sure what months means, but I highly doubt we see him until the new year at the earliest. My bet, late January/early February.
One final note, Peter Chiarelli did mention that McDavid WILL be back at some point this season, he does not think that this will extend into a season long issue.
More to come…
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