{"id":466036,"date":"2025-04-04T18:46:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T22:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=466036"},"modified":"2025-04-04T18:46:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T22:46:33","slug":"leon-draisaitl-injury-not-serious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/04\/04\/leon-draisaitl-injury-not-serious\/","title":{"rendered":"Leon Draisaitl Injury Against San Jose Not as Serious as Expected"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a> forward <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/draisle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Leon Draisaitl<\/a>, who suffered a lower-body injury last night against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/sharks\/\" target=\"_self\">San Jose Sharks<\/a>, may be back sooner than expected.<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Oilers Head Coach Kris Knoblauch called Draisaitl\u2019s injury \u201cshort-term,\u201d and specified that he could be back \u201cwell before&#8221; playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Oilers Get Good News on Leon Draisaitl Injury<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Draisaitl, the NHL\u2019s current goal-scoring leader with 52 tucks in 71 games, left last night\u2019s game during the second period and did not return. As per Sportsnet&#8217;s <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SportsnetSpec\/status\/1908261340529201463\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Spector<\/a>, this is a new injury for Draisaitl. The star forward was hurt after taking a hit from Sharks forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/goodrba01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-04-04_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barclay Goodrow<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite his absence, Edmonton went on to win their game 3\u20132. While he &#8220;will not be playing tomorrow,&#8221; labelling the injury as &#8220;short-term&#8221; is a good sign for Oilers fans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not too concerned, especially with Leon&#8217;s pain tolerance and things that he&#8217;s played through before,&#8221; Knoblauch added regarding the severity of the injury.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">&#8220;He&#8217;s out short-term, but we don&#8217;t have a time frame&#8230; Don&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s going to be something that&#8217;s going to head into the playoffs. We think he&#8217;s gonna be back well before that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Coach Knoblauch on Leon Draisaitl&#8217;s injury.<a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Enterprise?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Enterprise<\/a> | <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LetsGoOilers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LetsGoOilers<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bAukxV1hS2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/bAukxV1hS2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EdmontonOilers\/status\/1908267946314436853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 4, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Draisaitl Dealing With Injury Concerns<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the second time Draisaitl has missed time due to an injury in the past month. He previously missed four games near the end of March. Draisaitl did not dress for the team&#8217;s March 20 matchup against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/jets\/\" target=\"_self\">Winnipeg Jets<\/a>, marking the first time this season that he missed a game. Draisaitl returned on March 29, helping the Oilers to back-to-back 3-2 wins against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flames\/\" target=\"_self\">Calgary Flames<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/vegas-golden-knights\/\" target=\"_self\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>. He put up two goals and two assists during his short stint back.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Draisaitl is not the only star forward that Edmonton is currently missing. Oilers Captain <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcdavco01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor McDavid<\/a> suffered a lower-body injury against the Jets and has yet to return. Despite missing the past six games, he was seen in a <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/nhl\/article\/oilers-connor-mcdavid-returns-to-ice-in-non-contact-jersey\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">non-contact jersey<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> during Edmonton\u2019s practice on Tuesday. McDavid is also <\/span><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/edmonton-oilers-connor-mcdavid-injury-status-update-march-30\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">expected to return<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> before the postseason begins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Edmonton&#8217;s Playoff Rivals<\/h3>\n<p>The Oilers are riding a three-game win streak and will look to continue that tomorrow against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/kings\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Kings<\/a>. At this rate, it also looks like Edmonton will face the Kings in the first round of the playoffs. This would be the fourth consecutive year of a Los Angeles and Edmonton first-round matchup.<\/p>\n<p>Since their first recent playoff series in 2021, the Oilers have slowly shaved one game off of each series. They beat the Kings in seven games in 2022, six games in 2023, and five games in 2024.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Perry Nelson-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl, who suffered a lower-body injury last night against the San Jose Sharks, may be back sooner than expected. Oilers Head Coach Kris Knoblauch called Draisaitl\u2019s injury \u201cshort-term,\u201d and specified that he could be back \u201cwell before&#8221; playoffs. Oilers Get Good News on Leon Draisaitl Injury Draisaitl, the NHL\u2019s current goal-scoring [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5509,"featured_media":459528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4547,6671,4548],"tags":[5774,1576,193],"class_list":["post-466036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oilers","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-nhl","tag-edmonton-oilers-news","tag-injury","tag-leon-draisaitl"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466036"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466078,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466036\/revisions\/466078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}