Injury forces Oilers to make a roster move on Sunday.

The Edmonton Oilers provided some rather disappointing health updates regarding a few of their players over the week-end and it now appears that the team is addressing some of that bad news by making some shifts to their existing roster.

According to an official report from the Edmonton Oilers organization the Oilers have now called up 21 year old center Cooper Marody from the Bakersfield Condors of the American Hockey League and he is expected to join the main roster effective immediately. This is a huge opportunity for Marody who as of yet has not played in a single career game at the National Hockey League level and I feel like it's one that he has earned given his strong performance for the Oilers at the AHL level. 

Marody made his AHL debut during the 2017 - 2018 AHL season when he appeared in 3 games for the Condors recording an impressive 1 goal and 2 assists for a total of 3 points, a point per game performance for the young center. He then continued to showcase his scoring touch with the Condors this season recording 2 goals and 4 assists for a total of 6 points through his first 5 AHL games of the season, certainly a young kid with at least some promise in the offensive department. 

Now Marody's opportunity does come at the expense of some other members of the Oilers roster with the Oilers reporting earlier this week-end that Drake Caggiula was still a few days away from being able to return top the line up. This however seems to be a direct response to the injury to 25 year old winger Ty Rattie as Rattie was placed on injured reserve just prior to the call up for Marody being made. Rattie is expected to be out for an extended period of time which does seem to indicate that there is a strong chance that Marody will get a chance to strut his stuff before being sent back down to the AHL. 

If he shows any of the offensive flare that he does at the AHL level it seems reasonable to suggest that he could earn himself more ice time, but that being said the Oilers have kept him at the AHL level thus far so clearly they see some warts in his game. Only time will tell what comes of this opportunity for the young Oilers center.

[pub]