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This season has not gotten off to a hot start for the Edmonton Oilers, and things have gotten a bit worse with news that they’ll be without their captain, Connor McDavid for a few weeks due to an ankle injury.

Over the summer, you’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone who thought that the Oilers wouldn’t be at the top of the heap in the Western Conference pretty much all season, with some even pointing to them as a potential Stanley Cup favorite. 

However, the reigning Western Conference champs have stumbled out of the gates, and being without the best player in the world for two or three weeks is not going to help matters as they try to claw their way back to the top of the division from where they currently sit; seventh place, ahead of only the two-win San Jose Sharks.

McDavid left Monday night’s blowout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets with a “lower-body” injury, which turned out to be an issue with his ankle.

While it’s a big loss, head coach Kris Knoblauch noted that in a sense the Oilers lucked out because it seemed like they could be without McDavid for much longer.

“You never know what the outcome was going to be and how long,” Knoblauch said perNHL.com. “Obviously you don’t want to miss him for any time, but when you think about what it could’ve been, yeah, I guess we’re lucky that it’s as short as it is.”

Hopefully, McDavid will be on the mend sooner than later, but if you’re bumming pretty hard right now, Oilers fans, I want you to remember where you were one year ago.

To kick off the 2023-24 season the Oilers were a mess. So, bad, in fact, that they fired head coach Jay Woodroft and replaced him with Knoblauch. Meanwhile, McDavid missed some time early with an upper-body injury.

However, once Knoblauch arrived the team went on a tear, and even had an impressive 16-game win streak en route to the Stanley Cup Final where they nearly pulled off a miracle comeback.

This is to say that the Oilers have a resilient bunch, so I wouldn’t want to count them out just yet.