There are big things coming for the Oilers next week, and it couldn’t have come at a better time in the season.

The Oilers will be on their bye week following the All-Star break this weekend. This is huge news for our current IR as I count it as a free week of recovery. Not only do all the players get a well-needed break to heal up the bruises and rest their legs, but Oscar Klefbom gets an additional week of rehab on his once-broken finger.

We saw a return of Alex Petrovic this past week from his injury which added some needed defensive depth, and we’ve got a huge return coming next week.

You heard me right, the time has finally come for the return of Oscar Klefbom! Klef broke his finger by blocking a shot in a game on December 13th. He resumed skating not too long ago and since the beginning of the month, he’s been projected to return to the lineup immediately after the bye week. With that said, I’m happy to share the news that the timing seems to be coming together, and Oscar Klefbom is expected to return to the lineup on February 2nd against the Flyers! We won’t have the official news until likely the day before, or on game day, but everything is working out nicely.

We’ve never been so desperate for a defenceman to return to our lineup then we are now. The Oilers are hanging on to a playoff race by a thread, and hopefully, with the return of Klefbom they can pick up some momentum and start winning some games in the second half of this season. No pressure, Oscar!

Reggie’s been a bit of an anomaly the past few weeks as we haven’t really heard an update on him from the team. It was reported in December that he’s nearing a return and they will send him down to Bakersfield to get some conditioning in. However, since then we’ve heard crickets. We know that the Oilers would have to move some contracts around to activate Sekera from the LTIR, and I’m not quite sure they’re in a position to do that right now. Frankly, I think there might be a small chance that we never see Sekera back in the Oilers lineup this season. He’ll go down to the AHL for a bit and depending on how he’s feeling, I’m not sure if it would be beneficial to have him only play a handful of games if we’re running out of season.

There are a lot of unanswered questions regarding Andrej right now and only time will tell what the outcome is.

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