Capilano Rehab Centre Injury Report – January 12, 2016

We have some great news today citizens! Is Connor McDavid coming back? No! Is Oscar “Abs” Klefbom returning? Heck no! The good news is that these are the only two Oilers on the IR as of today! I’m too lazy to look back at my previous injury reports, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time all season there has been such a low number of injuries. Granted, those are arguably our two most important players, but it is still a good feeling and we should all be half-smiling about it.

Nail Yakupov was finally activated today after seven long weeks and 21 long games missed. According to my sleuthing he will dress for tonight’s game in Arizona and will likely put up four goals and seven points. He will be playing with a fierce hate for all NHL linesman and will take his bottled-up anger on the hot and streaking, Louis Domingue. 

Connor McDavid is allegedly, in my opinion, returning on February 2nd at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets. For all of those who had bets on when he’d return (including us at the Nation), you were most certainly wrong. The reason I think Feb 2nd is from the fact is that he has been doing battle drills in practice since January 6th. An average player isn’t really doing battle drills for a month before returning to game action. When a player is taking part in battle drills you would expect he is days away from returning. You know what, maybe we were right for once, maybe McDavid is legitimately game ready right now? So then why don’t we get him on the ice to save us immediately? 

Let’s take a look at our schedule. If McDavid were to return let’s say tonight against Arizona and played with us for the rest of January, he would be playing 7 games in 12 days. Granted, McDavid isn’t your average 18 year old (19 tomorrow, Happy Birthday Connor), this is a lot of games to be played in a row after an injury. So it’s either we make him play all these games in a short amount of time, or we we wait two more weeks, where he will then have one more week off from the all-star weekend to strengthen the bone even more. 

This news couldn’t be more frustrating to most Oiler fans right now, especially after the two winnable games we just lost. For a small amount of time I actually found myself being angry at Oilers management for keeping McDavid on the IR even though I KNOW HE’S REALLY HEALTHY. This is definitely the inner pissed-off-at-everything Oiler coming out of me. The Oilers decision here obviously makes perfect sense. This way we’ll know for sure that he’ll have a long, awesome career of lighting up Sam Bennet and the Flames.

Oscar Klefbom is arguably the most important piece of this puzzle that remains on the IR. Without him, our defence has looked like something very bad and unappealing. I asked Baggedmilk for a good simile for that statement and he gave me nothing but garbage. As per Jason Gregor (who I like to imagine as my own personal investigator because I use all his awesome reporting information for my articles), Klefbom has an infection in his leg, possibly a staph infection. After doing some googling, this does not sound good, and it means there is no timeline for Klefbom’s return. I’d hate to say it but a staph infection has the potential to turn into something a lot more serious. For now, we will hope for the best, and send him good wishes.

C’mon man!

Ever wonder what it’s like to hear the voice of an actor but to not actually see him on a screen? Friend of the show, Eric Johnson sits in with us to talk about his cool new show. Big surprise, we also talk about the Oilers a bunch too, and find out what it’s like being an Oilers fan living in Toronto. 

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