Oilers’ roster is whole once more
Klefbom ‘more chipper, more confident’ in return from nagging shoulder injury
The Edmonton Oilers expect to be at full strength for the first time this season when Oscar Klefbom returns to the lineup on Friday against Chicago.
The Oilers defenceman, back from nine days spent resting a bad shoulder, says he’s free from the pain that’s been hampering his play for months and is eager to spend the rest of the season making up for lost time.
“I’m ready to play,” Klefbom said Thursday after practice. “It’s up to the coaches, but I feel good to go. The shoulder feels a lot better. I’m ready.”
The time off seems to be just what he needed.
“I got an injection, too, and that really helped. Hopefully, it’s going to turn out, the season is going to be good now. It feels really good.”
He says the shoulder started bothering him late last season, when sitting out a few games simply wasn’t an option.
“It was bugging me a little bit in the playoffs last year, but you know how it is, it’s the first playoffs in 10 years, so you get a lot of medication and just battle through.”
Things didn’t improve much over the summer, so the injury continued into this season, cutting into the reliability and production that made him such an integral piece of Edmonton’s puzzle.
Playing hurt is never fun, and his game suffered for it, but the Oilers couldn’t afford to sit Klefbom down. He finally got a chance to rest and recover when Andrej Sekera returned from his knee injury right before the Christmas break.
“He’s had some problems,” head coach Todd McLellan said. “Not severe enough to keep him out of the lineup, but bad enough to affect his play and his mental state.
“He needed the time. He looks a lot more chipper, more confident now. I think the time off helped him. We expect him to be in the lineup on Friday.”
Klefbom admits the last few months have been a rocky road. The injury took away from his shot, it made handling the puck more difficult, and giving or taking a big hit would aggravate the situation.
“It would be a hit or something that triggered it and I’d get inflammation in the shoulder,” he said. “It gets very, very sore, then you start getting on meds. Then the stomach gets turned upside down when you’re on meds for a couple of months, too.
“It’s been a rough season. It started in early September, so there’s been a lot of medication and tough games, but it feels a lot better now. It was a good break to recover and I feel ready to go.”
Now that the Oilers are 100 per cent healthy, Klefbom expects them to take off in the second half.
“I feel confident in this group. We’ve played some really good games. We have a good feeling and we’ve played some really good hockey lately.”
UTILITY MAN
With nine defenceman in town, the Oilers need to make a move, and Yohann Auvitu’s versatility might help in that respect.
He’s being auditioned as a winger in practice in the hope that he can help out up front if the need arises.
“I like the way he skates, I like his aggressiveness,” said McLellan. “When he played D, he was up there all the time. So there’s a chance we might have something there.
“We’ve talked to him a little bit about it. He needs to learn that position a bit, but he could become a utility guy for us.”
MAINTENANCE DAY
Sekera wasn’t at practice on Thursday, sitting out after just three games back from his eightmonth rehab stint, but McLellan says everything is fine.
“We’ve got to manage his body as we go forward. The games are taxing on him right now,” said McLellan.
“We want to give him the days he needs. It’s hard to come back at this time of year and play those games, so we’re trying to manage him.”