Capilano Rehab Centre Injury Report – February 23, 2016

There are actually injury updates to report on this week! Oscar Klefbom, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Andrew Ference still remain on the IR, however, the Oilers IR swallowed up and devoured another innocent player last week in Eric Gryba. You know what, if we have to sacrifice all of our players to the IR at least once this season in order to win the Stanley Cup, I’m all for it. Give me some vice grip pliers, and a wooden spoon, and I’ll take care of the rest of the team for us. 

On February 16th, the Edmonton Oilers’ IR acquired Eric Gryba from the Oilers healthy roster. By sending him over to the dark side, the Oilers IR could potentially have a solid penalty kill line. Gryba got injured during the game against the Ducks when he fell awkwardly and got pinned against the post (classic Oiler injury). Chiarelli announced the next day that he will be out approximately a month with a knee injury. Do we still have any of that HGH medicine we fed McDavid, and Nuge? I’d suggest that it’s safe to admit that the Oilers will be out of playoff contention this year, so injuries to the team are starting to hurt less and less. The injuries still make me chuckle because of the fact that this is happening to us. The only thing the injuries are hurting right now are the potential trade deadline deals Chiarelli is planning on making. Gryba and maybe Nuge (*whimpers*) are potential trade candidates that aren’t going to happen anymore due to their injuries. 

Peter Chiarelli held a news conference today, and stated that Oscar Klefbom’s staph infection in his ankle came back a second time. (As long as it stays away from his abs, amiright?) Apparently the Oilers doctors surgically removed the infection, and I don’t even want to try and imagine what that looked like. I would like to think it’s comparable to removing some kind of extra terrestrial creature from the body, but that theory may be a long shot. The good news is that Klefbom’s ankle is healing as we speak (LIKE RIGHT NOW) and he is, in fact, skating on his own. For now, I will cross another day off in my ‘Klefbom’s Timeline’ calendar, crawl into my corner to cry, and wait some more.

Somebody very special has also skating on his own right now. You guessed it, Nuge! Nuuuuuuuge! I mean, I’m sure he was capable of skating before, since nothing was wrong with his legs, but you know what I mean. It is unclear on whether or not he was holding a stick, or handling pucks, or scoring geno’s, or waving to his fans – but one thing we know, is that he was allowed on the ice. Baby steps. 

For any of your injury needs, please contact our good friends at Capilano Rehab Centre or call (780) 466-1104.

The Oilers haven’t made any moves yet this week, but we are getting a lot of information in that there is one coming. Sources are saying that Chiarelli is working the phones extremely hard this week. I learned yesterday that there may be a few teams interested Justin Schultz, and maybe even Nail Yakupov. Chiarelli probably isn’t looking to get rid of a core player right now due to circumstances, and tight budgets across the league. Deals like that are more likely to happen during the summer and around the draft (*cough cough* when we win Auston Matthews). What we do know for sure is that Chia is likely looking to steal a top-tier defencemen from a cooperating team, which is most likely going to happen between now, and next season. 

Whatever happens though, OilersNation is on it. Stay tuned next Monday as Baggedmilk will be live-blogging the trade deadline all day long. I’m going to see if he’s interested in pulling a Jay Onrait by doing it in his bathrobe. I’ll report back soon.  

This week we sat down with ex-Oiler and three-time Stanley Cup Champion, Pat Hughes! Listen in to hear stories from the glory days. Including playing with Gretzky, winning the first cup with Edmonton, and being one of three Oiler players to score five goals in a single game! 

As always you can follow North x NorthGretz on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes!