As the Edmonton Oilers prepare to take on the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night, there’s a Leon Draisaitl-sized hole in their roster.

And it’s going to be there for the final 14 games of the regular season, the club announced Tuesday.

Their No. 2 centre was left shaken up in the first period of Sunday night’s game against the Nashville Predators when, for the second time in three games, a young player roughed up one of their superstars.

First, it was 25-year-old Dallas Stars centre Justin Hryckowian who got into a big scrum with Connor McDavid, who took exception to 24-year-old winger Arttu Hyry firing a puck at Draisaitl when the second period ended. Then it was 24-year-old Predators winger Ozzy Wiesblatt who laid a hit along the benches to Draisaitl, leaving the German hobbling to the locker room.

The Oilers had responses to both incidents. Hryckowian was targeted multiple times in the third period against the Stars, while Wiesblatt spent the final 55 minutes of Sunday’s game looking over his shoulder.

Edmonton’s apt kickback was just what they needed.

“Obviously, I understand it’s not the dirtiest check in the world, but it’s just who you hit, and the result of it, unfortunate,” said McDavid of Wiesblatt’s hit on Draisaitl. “I liked the group’s response.

“If you want to hit our top guys, there’s going to be a response. You know, yeah, obviously there’s been lots of talk about it with Toronto and stuff like that, but every group’s different, and we didn’t love the fact that he finished the hit so hard on Leo, and obviously, Leo didn’t feel very good after, so you got to handle that.”

The Oilers adjusted well on Sunday. Draisaitl sprung them to a 1-0 lead before he was injured, and Matt Savoie extended the lead to 2-0 early in the second period. A strong defensive performance took them to the final buzzer, winning 3-1.

But now the team has to turn the page without any help on the ice from Draisaitl. It’ll be a swift wake-up call, having to deal with a San Jose Sharks team nipping at their heels in the Pacific Division playoff race. The Sharks have been no slouches this season, led by young superstar Macklin Celebrini, who, at 19 years old, finds himself in the top-five in league scoring with a 35-goal, 95-point in 65-game campaign that’s making its fair share of noise.

He’s just one of four teenagers to have such a stat line in league history, joining the likes of Sidney Crosby (twice), Steven Stamkos, Jimmy Carson, Mario Lemieux and Dale Hawerchuk to have as many goals and points in a season — and he still has 17 games to go.

McDavid knows filling the void left by Draisaitl is no easy task.

“You don’t fill the void. The old cliché is it takes everybody, and everybody’s gonna have to be better if that happens.”

That doesn’t mean the Oilers don’t have a plan of attack, though.

The new-look top line of Matt Savoie, McDavid and Zach Hyman is expected to get some runway in the coming games, and potentially for the rest of the regular season. The new-look, then third line, now second line, of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jason Dickinson and Jack Roslovic were put together against the Preds, and stuck together.

Josh Samanski’s impressive play will have him taking Draisaitl’s spot between Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen, while the veteran Adam Henrique will centre Max Jones and Trent Frederic on the fourth line.

“He can definitely handle that responsibility,” said Knoblauch of matching up Jason Dickinson with Celebrini’s line. “And, you know, I think it would be probably a job for probably two of our lines to play up against Celebrini tonight. Now missing Draisaitl, we’ll probably get into more of a matchup situations more often than we had in the past.”

One knock on Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch in his two-and-a-half seasons has been his reluctance to trust young players in the lineup. It’s, in part, what led to the eventual departures of Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg, with the former saying, “it rubbed me the wrong way how little Edmonton thought of me.”

The same can’t be said for this season. Edmonton has developed a pair of young players in Savoie and Samanski who will now be thrust into much larger roles than earlier this year.

Savoie started the season fighting for minutes in the bottom six, now working his way up to averaging 15 minutes per night in the last 10 games since the Oilers returned from the Olympic break. Samanski, meanwhile, has been a great story in his own right.

Nobody expected the German centre, signed out of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, to be in the position he’s in now. He was thought of as a long shot, good story to maybe play NHL games one day, but now he’s making his impact felt. Samanski got to work for the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, adjusting to North American ice, racking up eight goals and 31 points in 45 games, playing in all situations. It earned him a spot on Germany’s Olympic roster, and now, a full-time spot in the NHL.

— The Oilers have split two games with the Sharks already this season, beating them 4-3 in overtime on Jan. 29, and losing 5-4 on Feb. 28, with one more game left this season after tonight, on April 8. These two remaining games will obviously have weight in terms of the Pacific Division race, with the Sharks five points back of the Oilers heading into tonight’s game, but there’s another wrinkle in all of it, too.

When the Oilers traded their 2027 first-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks as part of the return for Jason Dickinson and Colton Dach, it also impacted their 2026 first-round pick, sent to the Sharks in last year’s deal to acquire Jake Walman. That pick had top-12 protection on it, and could’ve moved to 2027 had disaster struck and the Oilers finished as one of the 12 worst teams in the league. Now, with the 2027 pick being moved, it locked in the 2026 pick’s ownership to the Sharks.

— There’s going to be an open competition for filling Draisaitl’s spot on the top power play. Podkolzin got time in his office on Sunday against the Predators, taking two shots on goal, but he isn’t a lock to stay there.

“We’re going to play around with it,” said Knoblauch Tuesday. “I think the importance of winning that faceoff is part of it, but having the best five guys and who’s going to work together.

“I think that we have a lot of good power-play guys that can play it, but it’s just who’s going to work well and move and read the play as well to know what McDavid’s doing and Bouchard and Hyman at the net. So it’s, I think, and obviously we haven’t had much time to work on it. Going forward, we’ll have some morning skates that we can do that. But right now, I think it’s just trial and error right now.”

Reading between the lines, I wonder if Savoie is going to get a look on that top unit, given his placement on the top line.

Savoie – McDavid – Hyman
Nugent-Hopkins – Jason Dickinson – Roslovic
Podkolzin – Samanski – Kapanen
Jones – Henrique – Frederic

Ekholm – Bouchard
Nurse – Murphy
Walman – Stastney

Ingram

After getting the keys to the crease earlier this week, Ingram will make his third straight start for the Oilers. He’s gone 4-2-1 in eight games since the Olympic break, posting a .892 save percentage.

Graf – Celebrini – Smith
Eklund – Misa – Toffoli
Regenda – Wennberg – Sherwood
Goodrow – Ostapchuk – Gaudette

Orlov – Klingberg
Ferraro – Leddy
Sam Dickinson – Desharnais

Nedeljkovic (likely)

GAME DAY PREDICTION: The Oilers continue a run of solid defensive play, and beat the Sharks 4-1.

OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: Jack Roslovic has seven goals in 10 games played against Alex Nedeljkovic. He scores another one today.

NOT-SO-OBVIOUS GAME DAY PREDICTION: A run of rough play continues, and Darnell Nurse fights Zack Ostapchuk.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s managing editor, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.