For the first time in nearly five years, the Edmonton Oilers are going to be without Connor McDavid for an extended period of time.

The team’s captain suffered what’s being called a lower-body injury in a loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets earlier this week and he returned to Edmonton for further testing. Specifics aren’t known yet, but it’s been reported that the “best-case scenario” for McDavid is a short-term absence.

During his NHL career, McDavid has dealt with a handful of injuries, a couple of them major and some that were minor. Let’s go back through the time that McDavid has missed and how the Oilers played without him.

McDavid’s debut season in the NHL was put on hold in November when he crashed head-first into the boards during a win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

Flyers defender Brandon Manning had been completely burned wide by the rookie and he shoved an off-balance McDavid into the boards while defensive partner Michael Del Zotto was also coming across to make a hit. Both players fell hard into the boards on top of McDavid and the result was a fractured left clavicle.

The Oilers were 5-8-1 on the night McDavid was injured and they sputtered along at a similar pace without him. When February rolled around and the first-overall pick was ready to return to the lineup, Edmonton was out of the playoff race with a 19-26-5 record.

The most memorable goal from McDavid’s rookie year came in his first game back from injury during a 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Oilers finished the 2015-16 season with a 31-43-8 record and McDavid scored 48 points in 45 games in his first season in the league.

After suiting up in all 82 games in both 2016-17 and 2017-18, McDavid missed four games in 2018-19. Two were because of illness and the other resulted from a two-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of New York Islanders defenceman Nick Leddy.

The Oilers had a rough season, going 35-38-9 and missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year. They managed to tread water in the handful of games that their captain missed, as they went 1-1-2 without McDavid.

The second major injury of McDavid’s NHL career came at the very end of that season. In a somewhat similar situation to Manning a few years earlier, Calgary Flames captain Mark Giordano was in the process of being burned by McDavid. The defender checked him as he was moving at full speed and McDavid crashed feet-first into Calgary’s net.

It was initially reported that McDavid suffered a PCL tear and that surgery wouldn’t be necessary, but the documentary around his recovery titled ‘Whatever It Takes’ revealed that the situation was more complicated.

The result was a completely torn posterior cruciate ligament and popliteus muscle, tears in the medial and lateral meniscus, and a fracture to the tibial plateau. McDavid was advised to immediately have surgery on his knee, which would have come with a 10-month recovery timeline that carried into the 2019-20 season. Instead, he opted for a rigorous rehabilitation program and was ready to play in the fall.

It wasn’t until January of the 2019-20 season that we learned about the severity of the knee injury McDavid had suffered in Calgary the previous season. The Oilers flew out of the gate that season with seven wins in their first eight games and McDavid, just a few months removed from having his knee torn in half, scored 22 points in 13 games in October.

Come February, the Oilers were holding down a playoff spot in a tight Western Conference race when McDavid landed on the Injured Reserve. He hurt his knee in a collision with Nashville Predators defenceman Dante Fabbro, which was worrying given the recent history. Testing revealed that McDavid’s knee was fine, but he was dealing with a quadriceps injury that required him to miss a couple of weeks of play.

During this stretch is when Leon Draisaitl really made his case as one of the league’s best few players. The Oilers went 3-2-1 in McDavid’s absence and Draisaitl led the way with four goals and 12 points over the six games while averaging 25:01 per night.

The season wound up being cut short because of the pandemic but the Oilers got back into the playoffs with a 37-25-9 record. Draisaitl, who found chemistry playing with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto on his wings, shattered the narrative that he was just a winger for McDavid. The German pivot scored 43 goals, led the NHL with 110 points, and won the Hart Trophy for the league’s most valuable player.

This is what the Oilers are going to need from Draisaitl while McDavid is on the shelf. After just signing an eight-year contract worth $112 million in August, he has an opportunity to prove why he’ll be the league’s top-paid player next year.

The next three seasons saw McDavid miss only two games, and neither were because of injury. He missed a game in January of 2021-22 because of COVID-19 protocols and opted to sit out the final game of that season to rest because the Oilers had already locked in their playoff spot.

The Oilers sputtered to start the 2023-24 season with a 2-9-1 record across their first few weeks of play. McDavid missed two games with an upper-body injury in October and returned to play in the Heritage Classic at Commonwealth Stadium.

Edmonton’s season turned around following a coaching change in November and they had their playoff spot clinched in early April. With the regular season winding down, McDavid missed three games because of a lower-body injury. He came back to play in the team’s second-last game and then sat out the final game of the year for rest.

The hope this year is that the Oilers can play well enough in McDavid’s absence that he doesn’t have to be rushed back into action and that he can be well-rested for the playoffs. Last spring’s run to the Stanley Cup Final was a reminder of just how much of a marathon the hockey season is.

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