ST. LOUIS — The hottest debate at Edmonton Oilers training camp was over whether or not the slight Nugent-Hopkins could handle the physical demands of playing against men in the NHL. As it turns out, they should have been worrying about the ice and boards at Chicago’s United Center.
In pursuit of a puck Monday night, Nugent-Hopkins basically tripped over the blue line and slid with his left shoulder into the boards. The impact was minimal, but the damage will cost him three or four weeks on the injury reserve.
"I was just going to forecheck the D-man, felt myself bit a rut, think I might have toe-picked, and fell right into the boards," he said in a phone call from Edmonton with sportsnet.ca. "It’s funny. I’ve never been hurt before, then I fall of my own doing and hurt myself. Definitely not a good event."
These are the first games that Nugent-Hopkins has missed due to injury in his hockey-playing life. He was sent home from St. Louis on Wednesday and examined by an Oilers doctor in Edmonton Thursday morning.
Nugent-Hopkins was well on his way to winning the Calder Trophy as the National Hockey League’s rookie of the year, with 13 goals and 35 points in 38 games. No Oiler has ever won that trophy, as Wayne Gretzky was deemed not to be a rookie after playing parts of two seasons in the World Hockey Association.
Nugent-Hopkins still leads the rookie scoring race by seven points over New Jersey’s Adam Henrique. As an 18-year-old, Nugent-Hopkins has established himself as Edmonton’s first-line centre, while quarterbacking the No. 2-ranked Oiler powerplay from the half wall.
"Hopefully it’s not too much of a negative," he said of the impact this injury could have on his rookie season. "Missing time is no fun, you always want to be out there. But I’ll try to heal up as fast as I can, get prepared to play. I want to get back out there as fast as I can and help the team any way I can."
The left shoulder injury does not require surgery. It’s just a matter of rehabilitating the injury, and trying to get back on the ice by the start of February.
"I haven’t (pinpointed) a certain game," he said of a possible return date. "I want to get back as soon as possible, but I want to make sure it’s completely healed."
The Oilers have had extraordinarily bad luck on the injury front over the past few years, with long-term injuries to key players becoming an annual event. Last season Taylor Hall was charging up the rookie scoring race when he injured his ankle after 65 games and missed the remainder of the season. Goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin played just 25 games before needing season-ending back surgery.
Ales Hemsky has become an injury-plagued star, missing 109 games over the last two seasons as well as the current campaign. Top defenceman Ryan Whitney played just 35 games last season before an ankle injury that still hasn’t healed properly causing him to miss another 22 games this year. He travelled to Charlotte on Thursday to be examined by the doctor who performed the ankle surgery.
The next Oilers news release could be that Whitney is done for the season and going back under the knife. Free agent signee Cam Barker (ankle surgery) will lose likely two-thirds of the 2011-12 season to injury.
