When a team makes it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, it's all but certain that a few players are dealing with significant injuries. Most of the time, however, those injuries don't come out until the series is over.
The Edmonton Oilers, who lost to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final for the second straight year, are no exception. At exit interviews on Thursday, captain Connor McDavid revealed that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who frequently plays on his line, played through a broken hand throughout the final.
"Nuge, to be able to gut it out with a broken hand and give us what he gave us, was pretty special," McDavid told reporters. "That was a pretty painful thing for him to go through, and it wasn't easy to watch him go through that. Pretty amazing what he was able to do."
Nugent-Hopkins, 32, missed multiple practices throughout the series and was a game-time decision more than once. He managed to play all six games, but scored just two points (one goal, one assist), both of which came in Game 4, and posted a minus-4 rating. He finished the postseason with 20 points (six goals, 14 assists) in 22 games.
It's unclear when or how Nugent-Hopkins suffered the injury.
The top pick in the 2011 NHL Draft, Nugent-Hopkins has played his entire 14-year career in Edmonton. In that time, he's scored 748 points (271 goals, 477 assists) in 959 regular season games and has emerged as a premier two-way forward. He scored a career-high 104 points (37 goals, 67 assists) in 2022-23.
As the Oilers pick up the pieces following another agonizing loss in the Cup Final, it will be interesting to see who else was dealing with severe injuries throughout the postseason.
