The Edmonton Oilers want to believe that the victory over the Calgary Flames at the Heritage Classic this weekend was the way to kick off a new start of the season, getting back on track. They also had captain Connor McDavid back in the lineup after the star forward missed two games with an upper-body injury sustained in the third period of a 3-2 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Oct. 21. McDavid was initially ally expected to be out 1-2 weeks, but he collected an assist on Sunday, though he failed to record a point on Thursday’s night in a 4-3 loss to the Dallas Stars.
While McDavid claims he’s returned so quickly due to the expertise of the training staff in Edmonton, some fans and pundits wonder if maybe the superstar is not 100 percent and could be playing hurt.
“Our training staff here is amazing in Edmonton. The whole crew, we’re very lucky here in Edmonton to have a great staff, and we’ve been working hard on it all week, and I feel like it’s in a really good place.”
We cannot blame anyone, especially Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman for trying to find out more about McDavid’s injury and that’s exactly what the insider attempted to do ahead of the Heritage Classic when the panel of Hockey Night in Canada invited the Oilers’ captain on set. This is what Friedman wrote in his 32 Thoughts column:
“What a fantastic weekend. Great fun, great event. When Connor McDavid arrived at the set on Saturday for an interview with Ron MacLean, Kevin Bieksa, Jennifer Botterill and Kelly Hrudey — he found a piece of paper saying, “Elliotte wants to know what hurts” written on it. Give you one guess who put it there.”
McDavid was not fooled into saying more about his injury. Last season, he played all 82 games last season and all 56 games during the 2020-21 season. In 2021-22, he missed only two games, one because of COVID-19 protocol and the other for rest in the regular-season finale.
The Oilers are expected to be a Stanley Cup contender and will only be able to have a long playoff run with a healthy McDavid.
The captain remains mum on his latest injury, maybe because it still needs some nursing, maybe because he prefers to focus on staying healthy and winning games.
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