Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid wasn't able to participate in practice for the second straight day Tuesday and is considered day-to-day due to a lower-body injury, per Mark Spector of Sportsnet.ca:
“Officially, McDavid has a lower body injury and is day to day. Questionable for tmw v. VGK. Injury happened with roughly 5:00 to play in Calgary Saturday. Sounds like an injury, but not a major one. With playoffs around the corner, they'll be careful.”
The Oilers' captain has recorded 31 goals to go along with career-best 99 assists in 74 games this season.
McDavid is only one assist away from becoming the fourth player in NHL history to collect 100 in a season. McDavid would join Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky (who did it 11 times) and Mario Lemieux.
A three-time (and reigning) Hart Trophy winner, McDavid has totaled 980 points (334 goals, 646 assists) in 643 career games since being selected by the Oilers with the top overall pick of the 2015 NHL draft.
Drama as Oilers prepare for the playoffs
The Oilers are in the midst of another stellar season in the NHL Western Conference. Edmonton sits just five points back of the Pacific Division's top spot as we approach the end of the 2023-24 season. At 47-24-5, the Oilers are once again looking like one of the teams to beat in the NHL — and Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are hungry for a Stanley Cup.
But there has been some drama clouding an excellent couple of months for the Oilers with Evander Kane and Corey Perry in the middle of things during a 4-2 win against the Calgary Flames in the Battle of Alberta on Saturday night.
After a typical Oilers-Flames scrum at the end of the second period, Perry could be seen yelling at Kane while both were on the bench.
Kane has struggled to not make headlines on every team he's played for, and for this to be happening right before the postseason is not ideal. But it's also reasonable to believe that the issue will fire Kane up before the playoffs, and help him channel positive energy that will help, not hinder his squad come the end of April.
Kane did say that there is no ill will between he and Perry after the victory.
“We’re fine. We are partners in the Masters pool,” Kane said.
“It happens. Brothers fight and argue. We are trying to make each other better. We talked about it after, apologize and move on. It happens in the room often, it just happened that the camera showed it,” Perry echoed.
It looks like the situation may be handled, although it would be interesting if McDavid and Draisaitl did actually make a plea to Perry to help deal with Kane for the rest of the season.
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