It’s funny. The Edmonton Oilers finally appeared to be getting healthy, but it wasn’t destined to last. In the span of two games, veterans Boyd Gordon, Matt Hendricks, Mark Fayne and Andrew Ference have all been lost to the team for indeterminate amounts of time. The Oilers have enough forwards to survive the first two losses without recalls, but on Thursday announced that Brandon Davidson would rejoin the team as a fill-in on defence.

Todd Nelson and Craig Ramsay deployed their five healthy defencemen in the following order against Colorado:

It’s a pretty ugly group by NHL standards, but then the Oilers are playing out the string and didn’t have a strong set of defencemen even before losing their two veterans. It’s long on youth; only Nikitin has played more than 200 career games.

Assuming Ference and Fayne are out for some length of time, four of Edmonton’s six defencemen against the Dallas Stars on Friday will have played for Nelson in Oklahoma City this season.

In a perfect world, Davidson would be able to play on the left side with an experienced right-shooting puck-mover as his partner. That’s the kind of setup that would play to his strengths, allowing him to focus on being a physical and dependable defensive defenceman. It’s something to keep in mind when he makes the jump. We don’t know yet who he’ll play with; if he’s lucky he’ll get Martin Marincin playing his off-side and if he’s unlucky he’ll be playing the off-side with Keith Aulie, who has his points but whose skillset makes him a difficult combination with Davidson.

It’s not a perfect opportunity for the player, but it is an opportunity. Davidson is in his third professional season now and is a candidate for a No. 6/7 job on the Oilers’ blue line next season; he could help his standing significantly if he can show well over these final games.