The Edmonton Oilers were in for a bit of a scare at practice involving captain Connor McDavid this morning.
With the team fresh off a hard-fought loss to the Florida Panthers last night, the Oilers pooled onto Rogers Place ice on Tuesday morning for a full practice. It was an intense one as the team prepared to welcome the Boston Bruins on Thursday night.
It may have been a tad bit too intense as McDavid collided with defenceman Darnell Nurse during a drill, resulting in the Oilers captain going down in a heap. It was certainly an accident on Nurse’s part who made sure McDavid was alright after the play.
Nonetheless, McDavid gingerly got up and left practice a tad bit early as a result.
“I think he’s doing alright,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said of McDavid after practice. “If he wasn’t, I’m sure I probably would have got an update right away… so I think he’s okay.”
“He can possibly play on Thursday. This is his first real practice… he’s had a couple morning skates & he’s been skating on his own… We’ll see how he’s feeling.”
Coach Koblauch on Viktor Arvidsson returning to the #Oilers lineup.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/AYjmV0tdMN
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You never want to see any player go down in practice, but when McDavid is involved, it adds a higher level of anxiety for both the coaching staff and players. The Oilers captain has already missed three games this season with an injury, and losing him before the Christmas break would, obviously, not have been ideal.
Knoblauch said there was a moment after the play when everyone was a bit worried about McDavid.
“You hold your breath,” Knoblauch said. “You don’t want to see any of that and, you know, sometimes it happens, and you gotta be careful on the drill that you do that you aren’t setting up a situation where players can get hurt.
“That one was absolutely just a freak accident. Wasn’t like two guys chasing into the wall or the boards. It was just one guy turning left, the other one turned right, and they run into each other. I think everyone’s okay.”
With Knoblauch giving everyone a reason to breathe a sigh of relief, the Oilers are lucky to have escaped the situation without any injuries to their star player. The most likely outcome was that McDavid probably had the wind knocked out of himself as a result and decided to go off just a little early to recover.
Still, it’s a great way to jolt everyone awake on an otherwise quiet Tuesday.