The Edmonton Oilers are likely to be without Mattias Ekholm and John Klingberg for the next number of games, as the pair of defencemen didn’t join the team on their four-game road trip.
The team kicks off a four-game road trip through the state of New York, visiting the Buffalo Sabres Monday night, the New Jersey Devils Thursday, the New York Islanders Friday and the New York Rangers on Sunday.
While there’s no word on if they’ll join the team on the trip, but Sportsnet’s analyst Louie DeBrusk, on Monday’s edition of Oilersnation Everyday, said that they aren’t with the team.
Liam Horrobin: Are Ekholm and Klingberg on the road trip?
DeBrusk: No, they are not. They are not on the road trip. From my understanding, they want to give Ekholm… from what I’ve heard in the conversations with Kris (Knoblauch), I think this is a decision to give him time to fully heal. This is a guy that plays heavy, hard minutes in Ekholm, and if it was playoffs, he’d be playing. Let’s just say that. I have no doubt that whatever he’s dealing with, he’d come in and play from what they’re talking about, and how they’re talking about it.
When you look at the schedule, though, you say to yourself for Paul Coffey and the coaching staff, ‘Why are we continually forcing him to play and injure just a little bit and have to work on it? Let’s give him this time now to heal up and make a strong push.’
For Klingberg, I’m not as clear as to what the injury is. He blocked a shot, had a scan done, and I’m not sure of the results of that or what’s going on there, but he’s not on the trip as well.
The time would be now for both players to get some rest. Ekholm has been dealing with an illness dating back to late January, which has seen him missing some practices and a game in early February against Toronto. It didn’t hold him out of playing at the 4 Nations Face-Off for Sweden, but it’s been clear for some time that Ekholm hasn’t been at the top of his game. Ekholm missed the Oilers’ two most recent games, which saw them secure a 3-2 overtime win against the Montreal Canadiens last Thursday and a 5-4 win over the Dallas Stars Saturday.
Klingberg has also missed those games, last playing against the Anaheim Ducks a week ago Tuesday where he played 18:30, missing no time during the game.
The Oilers have shuffled their defensive pairings from Saturday’s game, putting Jake Walman alongside Evan Bouchard on the top pairing, Darnell Nurse and Troy Stecher on the second pairing, and Brett Kulak and Ty Emberson on the third pair.
You can listen to the full episode of Oilersnation Everyday below.
