Connor McDavid Out Day-to-Day with Lower-Body Injury

As per Ryan Rishaug of TSN, Knoblauch says McDavid will make the call on whether or not he plays tomorrow night. He adds this is not the same issue he missed two games with earlier in the season. This could be minor, but the priority for the Oilers will be making sure he’s healthy for playoffs vs trying to chase down the Vancouver Canucks or take the Vegas Golden Knight out of the playoff mix. Mark Spector writes, “Injury happened with roughly 5:00 to play in Calgary Saturday. Sounds like an injury, but not a major one. With playoffs around the corner, they’ll be careful.”

As it stands, the Oilers are five points back of the Canucks and the Golden Knights hold the second wild-card spot. A win over Vegas could mean a huge blow to Vancouver’s chances of holding the Oilers off or Vegas’ odds of getting in, especially after spending big at the NHL Trade Deadline.

McDavid has 130 points on the season and while he’s likely not personally concerned about the scoring race, missing any action would likely take him out of the running and make it harder for him to catch Nikita Kucherov who leads the NHL with 136 points.

Oilers Need to Approach McDavid’s Injury With Caution

The bigger concern is making sure something that might be small now doesn’t become a bigger issue at the most important time of the season. Leaving it in the hands of the player is an interesting decision. While no one will know his body better than McDavid, the typical response from players is that they want to play. If McDavid can’t go on Wednesday, it should signal this is something potentially problematic.

McDavid missed two practices in a row.