Let\u2019s cut to the chase.<\/p>\n
Leon Draisaitl, out for a month with a suspected knee ligament tear, is playing Game 1 against the Anaheim Ducks. He\u2019s gone from a possible to a probable, knowing his drive. After several days wearing a grey fifth-line jersey in team skates, Draisaitl was tramping up and down the ice Friday in a regular white jersey, in the middle with his usual winger Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen.<\/p>\n
Yeah, he needs the medical staff to sign off officially, but Draisaitl knows his body better than anybody. He\u2019s getting past the pencil him in stage. Not quite pen, but \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting him as close as possible to game-ready and to do that we\u2019re putting him with players in practice he would most likely play with,\u201d said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch after Friday\u2019s session with one more full skate for sure, Sunday, before Monday\u2019 game and possibly an option morning skate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s played a lot with Pods and Kapanen this year and last and sometime during the playoffs that would be a line for me,\u201d said Knoblauch, who has said Draisaitl, who finished with 97 points after taking a hit from Ozzy Wiesblatt in a Nashville game March 15, would be back some time in Round 1. But, the way he\u2019s skating, it\u2019s not Game 3 or Game 4.<\/p>\n
Unless he has a setback.<\/p>\n
What are Knoblauch\u2019s eyes showing him?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we had our team photo two or three weeks ago, he looked ready to me. He looked effortless on the ice. That doesn\u2019t say the whole story of what\u2019s underneath, but it\u2019s up to the doctors to say he\u2019s ready, that he\u2019s not at risk of damaging something. We\u2019ll wait for that,\u201d said Knoblauch.<\/p>\n
While Draisaitl looks like he could be the second-line centre, the chances of Jason Dickinson getting the green light for Game 1 is more dim. He didn\u2019t skate with the main group Friday.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been out 10 days after taking a shot off his leg in San Jose.<\/p>\n
Is it a pain threshold thing with Dickinson or a doctor\u2019s call?<\/p>\n
The latter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was on the ice on his own, skating, today. I saw our training staff afterwards and I do expect him on the ice for practice with the whole team on Sunday,\u201d said Knoblauch, who has a first line with Connor McDavid between Matt Savoie and Zach Hyman and a fourth with Josh Samanski centring Colton Dach and Trent Frederic, and is trying for familiar pairs of linemates on the other two \u2014 Draisaitl with Podkolzin, Nugent-Hopkins with Jack Roslovic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of balls up in the air. We don\u2019t know about Leon, if Dickinson can play Game 1. We have some question marks,\u201d said Knoblauch.<\/p>\n
RelatedPICK YOUR SPOT<\/p>\n
Calvin Pickard is back from AHL playoff-bound Bakersfield after going to the farm after the Olympic break, back as third goalie for the Oilers NHL post-season run. He\u2019ll only dress if Connor Ingram or Tristan Jarry gets hurt but he\u2019ll have his family by his side here. With his daughter in kindergarten, his wife stayed in Edmonton after he cleared waivers. Pickard was living in a hotel in Bako, hardly ideal, until getting a place with Alec Regula.<\/p>\n
Pickard played eight games on the farm in concert with Matt Tomkins in the oftimes chaotic AHL, where goalies are left helpless, at times, with breakdowns. He had 3.26 average and an .886 save percentage. The NHL allows for a third goalie on every playoff team to be recalled from the AHL on an emergency basis. They can practise and serve as the safety net if anybody gets hurt in the playoffs. When Bako brought back goalie Connor Ungar from the ECHL this week, it telegraphed that Pickard was rejoining the Oilers.<\/p>\n
Pickard is tickled to be back, leading the stretching in the middle of the ice, post-practice Friday. \u201cWe\u2019re excited to have him back. I know how popular he is and how much he means to our room. He is a definitely a glue guy. Lots of smiles with the interaction with him,\u201d said Knoblauch.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately for him we were shaking up our goaltending situation: Ingram, Jarry and Pickard. He was the odd man out. It was unfair for Calvin because we had played some of our worst hockey in front of him, which didn\u2019t help his situation. He was our guy right from the start we were calling up with every team allowed three goalies,\u201d said Knoblauch.<\/p>\n
BRINGING THE JUICE<\/p>\n
Dach looks like he\u2019s solidified a spot as fourth-line winger, in part because of the leg injury to Max Jones but also because Knoblauch likes what Fort Saskatchewan\u2019s Dach brings to the table. In Game 82 Thursday against the Canucks, he scored, he assisted on a Josh Samanski goal and he fought Elias Pettersson, for the old Gordie Howe hat trick.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat addition to our team,\u201d said Knoblauch of the winger, who started the season with the Chicago Blackhawks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know very much about him when we traded for him. Unfortunately, he got hurt right away and we weren\u2019t sure how he would get back into the lineup because we have a lot of capable forwards. He came back and we weren\u2019t sure how many looks he\u2019d get because the games meant something. But right from the start he provided energy, physicality and speed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need that for the playoffs with long rounds. He\u2019s worked himself into being a regular for playoffs. His game has always been the same. It\u2019s not highs and lows. Nice to know as a coach, that he\u2019s consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n
This \u2018n that: McDavid, who had 24 points in the 14 games Draisaitl missed to end the season, got his 48th four-point game in the blowout of the Canucks. That\u2019s one more than Jari Kurri, 10th most in history. But, more importantly, he has 1,220 points now, one more that the great Jean Beliveau. Beliveau had 1,219 in 1,125 games. McDavid has played 794 league games \u2026 The Oilers had tied their club record against the Canucks for the fewest shots allowed in a game at 11, set Oct. 9, 2001 against Chicago, until the stats crew found a 12th shot after the game ended \u2026 Jack Michaels and Louie DeBrusk will call the game for SportsNet in the Oilers-Anaheim series, with the retiring-after-the-playoffs Scott Oake as game host \u2026 The NHL has a playoff salary cap ceiling, too, but deputy commish Bill Daly says none of the 16 teams should have any trouble with game-day cap lineups, which means, say, the Oilers wouldn\u2019t be sitting Jarry and his $5.38 million cap for Pickard\u2019s $1 million \u2026 Ducks\u2019 captain Radko Gudas, who was suspended five games for his knee-on-knee hit on Auston Matthews, has been battling injuries. Ex-Washington Capitals right-shot defenceman John Carlson has been eating up his minutes after they got him at the trade deadline. It was a conditional first-round pick, a first-rounder in 2026 or 2027. If the Ducks made the playoffs this spring, the Caps got Anaheim\u2019s first-rounder this June \u2026 It appears Curtis Lazar is the odd man out at forward for Oilers, if Draisaitl plays Game 1. Adam Henrique was on left wing with centre Nugent-Hopkins and right wing Roslovic at Friday\u2019s practice, giving them two excellent defensive forwards and penalty-killers on a line with Roslovic as a five-on-five shooter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s cut to the chase. Leon Draisaitl, out for a month with a suspected knee ligament tear, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[651,4798,1929,1138,4793,1977,4802,4799,944,53,461,652,52,263,4797,653,648,4801,1129,655,1378,467,943,4795,649,4794,4796,1395,4800,471,946,3073,658,462],"class_list":{"0":"post-8516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-adam-henrique","9":"tag-alec-regula","10":"tag-anaheim-ducks","11":"tag-auston-matthews","12":"tag-calvin-pickard","13":"tag-canucks","14":"tag-capitals","15":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","16":"tag-colton-dach","17":"tag-connor-ingram","18":"tag-connor-mcdavid","19":"tag-curtis-lazar","20":"tag-edmonton","21":"tag-edmonton-oilers","22":"tag-elias-pettersson","23":"tag-jack-roslovic","24":"tag-jason-dickinson","25":"tag-john-carlson","26":"tag-josh-samanski","27":"tag-kasperi-kapanen","28":"tag-kris-knoblauch","29":"tag-leon-draisaitl","30":"tag-matt-savoie","31":"tag-matt-tomkins","32":"tag-max-jones","33":"tag-nashville-predators","34":"tag-ozzy-wiesblatt","35":"tag-playoffs","36":"tag-radko-gudas","37":"tag-ryan-nugent-hopkins","38":"tag-trent-frederic","39":"tag-tristan-jarry","40":"tag-vasily-podkolzin","41":"tag-zach-hyman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}