Leon Draisaitl appeared to be injured after taking a hard hit early in the first period from Ozzy Wiesblatt. Draisaitl was not on the bench to start the second, and didn't play the rest of the game. Kris Knoblauch had no update on his status after the game.
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Leon Draisaitl injury underlines season of bizarre injury luck for Edmonton Oilers
Photo credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 17, 2026, 18:30 EDTUpdated: Mar 17, 2026, 18:17 EDT
The Edmonton Oilers medical staff is earning their paycheque this season.
I wrote on December 21 that this Edmonton Oilers season feels like a “year from hell.” A team with championship aspirations going through the tedious 82-game season, waiting until they can play for the only thing left to achieve, has been tested six ways to Sunday.
A sometimes-engaged, sometimes-lost-in-space team, working through the mire of January games, while still finding their game at the right time.
Yet, the weather has been warming, reminding us of playoff hockey weather, of what spring can provide the Oilers fan. The team is playing more connected in their defensive zone, going 3-1-1 in their last five, beating the first-overall Colorado Avalanche.
Through the sludge, they can still win the division, something they haven’t done since 1986-87. Dare we say, things were looking up?
Then Leon Draisaitl gets jostled along the boards on Sunday night on his bobblehead night!
Down the tunnel…on the bench…out for the game?!
Kris Knoblauch, in his element, equivocating for a couple of press conferences, lips clacking, full tanks of oxygen inhaled before any word escapes. He’ll miss some time, he says, but don’t take his word for it.
Then, after the Tuesday morning scrum, the Edmonton Oilers publish the dreaded press release:
“Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl is expected to miss the remainder of the regular season after sustaining a lower-body injury in the first period of the team’s game versus Nashville on March 15,” it reads.
Every team goes through injuries. The Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars are missing key contributors.
No one is crying for them or the Oilers. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a strange injury luck season, especially when the team shows life.
This was a big season for Jake Walman to solidify himself as a legitimate second-pair defenceman. The ink wasn’t dry on his seven-year, $49-million extension in training camp, and he hasn’t been right since.
Zach Hyman didn’t start the season until November 15 with that carry-over injury from the Western Conference Final. Kasperi Kapanen, knock on wood, has survived the worst of it, but infamously re-aggravated an injury at practice in December. Jack Roslovic’s hot streak in November was ended after taking a puck to the mini-Knoblauchs.
Tristan Jarry was a different player when acquired, but for all of two-and-a-half games, before his groin issue. Connor Clattenburg’s fun run of rambunctiousness ended with a puck to the eye, which forced him to avoid exercise so the swelling didn’t crowd his eyeball.
And so on….and so forth…
The last two weeks
Reminiscent of the tail end of last season, the Oilers are leaking drips and drabs of forwards out of the lineup post-Olympics.
Curtis Lazar, Mattias Janmark, Adam Henrique, Colton Dach, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, plus blueliner Ty Emberson, have all missed time, either from injury or personal reasons – that’s just in the last two weeks.
Thank goodness there was rare good injury news when it came to Connor Ingram’s head.
But overall the last fortnight, the injury theme was depth, periphery pieces that could be interchanged. With Draisaitl gone, a foundational piece down the middle is gone. The Oilers have 14 games remaining in the regular season, which ends April 16 against Vancouver. The nice news is that nine of those 14 are at Rogers Place.
I’ll avoid using the term “litmus test” because it’s become redundant this season.
But one thing we know is that the Oilers love doing things the hard way. We know that the Oilers of the past have survived such adversity, going through periods without McDavid or Draisaitl. In the past two seasons, the Oilers are 7-6-1 sans Draisaitl.
Is this team deep enough? Is the Draisaitl injury timeline a precautionary one or an optimistic one?
It would be nice to think so.
The Oilers just need to take one of the eight slots for the playoffs. The rest be damned.
Not losing any more players would help too…
Michael Menzies is an Oilersnation columnist and has been the play-by-play voice of the Bonnyville Pontiacs in the AJHL since 2019. With seven years news experience as the Editor-at-Large of Lakeland Connect in Bonnyville, he also collects vinyl, books, and stomach issues. Follow him on X at Menzies_4.
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