Kris Knoblauch confirms one of his top forwards has been injured.

The Edmonton Oilers are coming off of one of the worst losses in the history of their franchise this past weekend and unfortunately it was even more bad for the Oilers and their fans once Monday morning rolled around.

On Monday, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch confirmed that veteran forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been sidelined with an injury and is expected to miss some time. Knoblauch stated that he believes Nugent-Hopkins will be out of the lineup for roughly a week's time, however Knoblauch has been known to be overly optimistic when it comes to his predictions about player recovery.

This is a terrible blow to the Oilers with Nugent-Hopkins unquestionably being one of the team's top forwards, especially when you consider the Oilers are already struggling to fill the void left by the injured Zach Hyman.

Nugent-Hopkins was having a solid start to his season with 5 goals and 11 assists, a total of 16 points through just the first 16 games of the regular season.

Making matters worse for the Oilers is the fact that they desperately need to find a way to turn their fortunes around, with the Oilers currently boasting an unimpressive record of 6-6-4 on the season and finding themselves near the basement of the Pacific Division, ahead of only the last place Calgary Flames.

Oilers have gone 3-5-2 over their last 10 games and are coming off of 2 straight losses, making the timing of this injury truly awful.

Stay tuned for more on this developing story.