Nugent-Hopkins’ injury bad break for stretch drive
Cracked ribs mean Edmonton will be without crafty centre for several weeks
The Edmonton Oilers returned from their break Friday to discover Ryan Nugent-Hopkins won’t be returning from his.
Not for five or six weeks, anyway. While the rest of the team is back on the ice after their bye week, Nugent-Hopkins is recovering from cracked ribs and will be out until late February.
That’s a cruel blow for the Oilers given Nugent-Hopkins not only leads the team in goals, but is also one of the most versatile and reliable players on a team struggling to fight its way back into the playoff race.
“You can make an argument who our key, go-to guy is this year,” said head coach Todd McLellan. “Obviously Connor is having a good year individually and there are some others, but I would throw Nuge right up there. He’s been trustworthy in every situation. He’s given us valuable minutes.”
The Oilers originally thought Nugent-Hopkins suffered a bruised sternum from a hit levelled by Vegas Golden Knights defenceman Brayden McNabb in Edmonton’s last game before the bye.
“When we spoke after the game in Las Vegas, the initial indication was that he’d be OK,” said McLellan. “We came home and saw some doctors and had some tests and he’s going to be out five to six weeks.
“It’s not the end of the world, you’ll see him walking around, but you can’t play with that until it heals.”
It might be the end of the world for the Oilers’ season, though. They were hoping to launch some sort of rally in the second half to pull themselves back into the playoff conversation, but losing one of their key centres makes an uphill climb that much steeper.
Nugent-Hopkins leads the team with 16 goals this season, plays on both the power play and penalty kill and provides the kind of depth at centre that allows McLellan to play Leon Draisaitl on Connor McDavid’s wing if he wants to, which he does. Or did.
“It causes us to reconfigure the lines,” said McLellan, who has to split up McDavid and Draisaitl and hope the rest of the wingers can pick up the slack. “We finally got some offence going with Leon up on the wing again, but we have to put him back into the middle.”
With Draisaitl playing secondline centre with Milan Lucic and Jesse Puljujarvi, McLellan will play Ryan Strome at third-line centre with Jujhar Khaira and Mike Cammalleri.
Anton Slepyshev joins Mark Letestu and Zack Kassian on the fourth line.
“We’ll see what we get from the rest of the crew,” said McLellan. “But (Nugent-Hopkins) won’t be playing for a while.”
McDavid says it’s difficult to quantify the impact Nugent-Hopkins has on the team because he’s counted on in virtually every situation.
“He’s a guy who’s going to be really missed,” said McDavid. “He’s someone who battles hard each and every night — PK and powerplay guy, good on draws, he’s just reliable all over the ice.”