Good news on the significant Oilers trade acquisition, but mixed news with McDavid and Ekholm

This in from the Edmonton Oilers practice, some good news on major Edmonton Oilers trade acquisition Trent Frederic, but iffy news on the injury status of Connor McDavid, Stuart Skinner, Mattias Ekholm and John Klingberg.

Reported Tony Brar of Oilers TV: “McDavid, Ekholm, S. Skinner & Klingberg will not be initially flying out with the team Monday. Possibility they can join the group partway through the four-game road trip. Kane & Frederic will be flying and skating with the team this week on the road.”

And this from Oilers podcaster Joshua Marshall of the 2 Mutts Hockey Podcast:
“Injury update on Connor McDavid: After a hard skate yesterday morning & a conversation with both the Oilers medical staff plus the team Connor works close with on his side a decision has been made that he won’t travel with the team tomorrow & he will stay home to work close with his trainer & the Oilers medical team. April 9th remains the return date for McDavid as long as there is no set backs. The Oilers were hoping he could return vs the LA Kings on Saturday April 5th but they are giving it more time to heal, rest & recover.”

1. Right now when it comes to what I project as Edmonton’s best line-up if everyone is healthy, Edmonton is missing their first line centre, their second and third line left wingers, their top goalie, their top pairing left shot d-man and their bottom pairing right shot d-man.

That means six regulars are out just now. Not good.

2. Adding to the negative aspect of this are the lingering injuries to Ekholm and Klingberg. We have seen them attempt comebacks then return to the sidelines. Ekholm is a crucial player for the Oilers, so this is troubling.

3. On the plus side, it’s great to hear that Trent Frederic is finally close to skating with the team. Last year at the deadline the Oilers traded for Troy Stecher only to find out he couldn’t play in the playoffs due to a cyst in his ankle. Frederic came at a steeper price than Stecher. His toughness and skill are needed for the playoffs. His comeback is critical to Edmonton’s Stanley Cup hopes, given the lack of toughness in the existing line-up.

4. Brar works for the team, but Marshall had some solid sources so I put some weight in his more fulsome report on McDavid.

5. The player I’m most worried about now is Ekholm. We saw how Darnell Nurse’s game collapsed in the last months and playoffs of the 2023-24 season.

Nurse was a shadow of himself, leaking goals and Grade A shots against, likely due in large part to playing with injury.

We’re now seeing the same trend with Ekholm. In his last 12 games, his two-way performance has collapsed. He’s gone from being arguably the most dependable d-man on the Oilers to arguably the least dependable.

We see this in his Grade A shots plus-minus per game.

In his first 52 games he made 1.65 major contributions to Grade A shots per game at even strength and made mistakes on just 1.57 per game. Good numbers for sure, especially for a d-man facing top opposing competition.

In his last 12 games, howeber, he’s made just 0.88 major contributions to Grade A shots per game with 2.32 major mistakes per game. Yikes!

He’s gone from a strong +0.07 per game — a great number for a d-man — to -1.44 per game, a bad number for a d-man, the kind of poor rate we saw from Nurse in the playoffs last year.

One key in this last stretch of the season then is to give Ekholm and much time to rest and recover for the playoffs as possible. One hopes he has an injury that will respond to rest and treatment, as opposed to something that will need surgery. Perhaps rest will do the trick, as it did for Nurse, who is now having his best season as an Oiler.