If you haven’t heard yet, Corey Perry suffered an injury to his meniscus and MCL in warmups this week before a preseason game against the Arizona Coyotes. The injury required knee surgery, and the timeline for his return will be up to five months. 

First of all, this is terrible for him. Corey’s one of those guys who you hate to play against but would love to have him on your team. He’s had a very successful career and seems like an all around great guy. Suffering a major injury like this is a terrible incident and I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody. On the other hand, this is a major setback for the Anaheim Ducks that could be in the Oilers favor.

Corey Perry is currently going into the sixth season of an eight-year, $69 million deal with the Ducks. I shouldn’t have to mention that Corey Perry isn’t a fan favorite of any Oilers fan, especially after the entire 2016 Western Conference semi-finals where the Oilers lost to the Ducks in seven games. In fact, if you take one Twitter search of Corey Perry, you won’t find a single Oiler fan saying anything nice about him. The reason we have these opinions about him is that Corey Perry has been known to destroy us every time we play the Ducks. He’s a great player that is great at getting under the skin of his opponents. This makes him a great asset to the Ducks, and it is terrible for the team that he is injured.

With that said, the Oilers now have a massive opportunity in front of their faces. The Oilers play the Ducks only three times in the next five months. It will obviously be a pleasure to play the Ducks without Perry in the lineup. (I should add that Kesler is on the IR right now too). However, three games wouldn’t necessarily make a huge impact on the scale of an 82 game season.

The important thing here is that Perry will be missing out on games against the rest of the Pacific Division and the Western Conference. Last year, Corey Perry put up 19 points in 24 games against Pacific Division teams. The year before that, he put up 22 points 29 games against Pacific Division teams. Perry and the Ducks obviously play Pacific Division teams more than any other division in the league, and Corey tends to perform well in them. Without Corey Perry in these games, us little guys in the Pacific Division have a good chance to knock the Ducks off their pedestal.

If you factor in Nate Schmidt getting suspended from the Golden Knights, and Erik Karlsson going to the Sharks, the Pacific Division might be turned upside down this year. I’m not saying this is exactly what’s going to happen, but there’s a chance!