Mike Babcock Shares Early Update On Isaac Howard.

The Edmonton Oilers got quite a scare on Saturday when forward Isaac Howard had to be helped off the ice after being on the receiving end of a knee on knee hit from New York Islanders forward Emil Heineman.

Following the game Oilers head coach Mike Babcock was asked to share an update on Howard's status and Babcock was surprisingly forthcoming. Not only did Babcock actually have an update to share, which is relatively uncommon in these situations, but the news from Babcock sounded pretty positive despite how scary things looked on the ice.

"We don't think Howard it's as serious as it looked," said Babcock following the Oilers shutout victory over the Islanders. "We're hoping for a real good recovery day for him tomorrow, and then if he doesn't [feel better] then we'll get on with the medical part of looking into it. But they think it's favorable."

While that isn't an official medical update on the part of Babcock it's certainly better news than anyone would have anticipated after seeing the hit early in the first period, not to mention seeing Howard being helped off the ice. Despite seeing limited minutes, averaging just under 9 minutes of ice time a night this season, Howard has appeared in all but 1 of the Oilers games this season and losing him for any length of time would mean having to fill yet another hole on offense due to injury.