Oilers activate Matt Benning while placing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on IR

According to the @Edmonton Oilers’ official Twitter account, the team has activated @Matt Benning off of the Injured Reserve while replacing him with @Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Yesterday, we learned that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was going to miss this weekend’s series against the Vancouver Canucks while he continues to recover from a procedure to correct an issue with his hand. According to Dave Tippett, the team is hoping to have Nuge back early next week but it’s still unclear exactly what is going on with his hand, so all we can really do is wait and hope that this newest timeline is correct. I assume that Nugent-Hopkins’ will be retroactively placed on the IR to last weekend so that he’ll be available for the upcoming week if his hand plays nice. In 25 games played so far, Nugent-Hopkins has put up five goals and 11 assists for 16 points while averaging 19:16 worth of ice time in all situations.

As for Matt Benning, the defenceman hasn’t played since taking a high stick to the head from Evander Kane 10 days ago in San Jose. I know he takes a lot of heat around here, but I feel like Benning has been having a decent season while playing mostly on the third pairing rather than higher up in the order. Now that he’s back in the mix, it will be interesting to see where he slots into the lineup and how he’ll be utilized. You’d have to think that Caleb Jones gets sent back, but that’s me just guessing at this point int time. In 23 games played, Matt Benning has registered five assists while averaging 13:52 worth of ice time per night.