The Edmonton Oilers lost the services of Leon Draisaitl on Sunday, but their head coach is optimistic that his star won't be out for very long.
Draisaitl was forced to leave Sunday's game against the Nashville Predators in the second period with an apparent injury.
The star centre took a hit from Predators forward Ozzy Wiesblatt along the boards and went directly to the bench and down the tunnel with a noticeable limp in the first period. He returned and played a few shifts at the end of the first period, before not coming out for the second.
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch had no update on Draisaitl's status after the game, but did seem to think that it wasn't going to be a long-term absence for the German sniper.
“He didn’t feel right, he went off,” Knoblauch said, describing the sequence of events around Draisaitl’s eventual departure. “He got checked out, felt like he could play on it, and the medical staff looked at him. They were comfortable with him trying it out, (but) he went out and he just didn’t feel quite right.
“The fact the medical staff said, ‘It doesn’t seem too bad and there’s no immediate red flags,’ tells me that it shouldn’t be a really long injury. There might be some time off, but we’ll find out later.”
Draisaitl got off to a hot start in the game — also his bobblehead night at Rogers Place — scoring his 35th goal of the season on an early power play. He had played just 1:39 before being forced to leave.
The goal lifted the German forward to 97 points in 65 games on the season.
If Draisaitl were to miss significant time, it would be a major blow to an Oilers team that is battling for playoff positioning. Edmonton entered Sunday's game third in the Pacific Division with a 32-26-9 record and 73 points.
