Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Oilers Injury Update

On Tuesday afternoon, the Oilers were able to update everyone on a couple of pending injuries that hadn't been confirmed, as the MRI results for Jordan Eberle and Tom Gilbert came down and both are now expected to miss at least a few weeks with their respective injuries.  Both players were injured last week on the team's road trip and they were waiting until their return back to Edmonton to get the tests done.

The Oilers expect to be without Eberle for the next 2-to-3 weeks with his knee injury.  The injury doesn't sound terribly serious, but it will need some rest and some healing to it.

At over a point-per-game in scoring this season, these could be a long three weeks for the Oilers to work themselves through, missing out on 8-to-10 games will certainly have an effect on everyone's season.  In 41 games, Eberle has 43 points (17 goals and 26 assists).

As for Gilbert, he is now expected to be out of the line-up for about a month with an ankle/knee injury. It sounds like has some sprained joints, so it isn't anything too serious, but it could very well be the combination of joints that will make healing difficult.  Hard to say.

Gilbert currently ranks 54th among all defensemen in pool scoring this year, with 3 goals and 12 assists in 38 games for the Oilers and has been one of the rocks they have leaned against this year with injuries to Ryan Whitney and Corey Potter.  With Gilbert joining the ranks of the injured, they will struggle with points from the back end.

ImplicationsStacey C., who goes into Tuesday's busy night in 2nd place will certainly be missing out on Eberle's production, especially over the next three weeks. Stacey sits 3 points out of 1st place on Tuesday afternoon, 1 point up on 3rd, 14 points up on 4th and he is already without Leafs forward Tyler Bozak. This is poised to be tough stretch for him.

With the Gilbert injury, Wes M. only has one healthy defenseman on his team, Marc Staal.  Wes also has two forwards injured, so his place in the standings is set to drop dramatically, well as dramatically as it can from 18th place.  He currently stands 11 points up on 19th place and that just doesn't appear to be very safe at all.  Wes currently ranks last in skater games played in the pool with 352, where the average in the pool is 428.

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