The Edmonton Oilers are losing one of the NHL’s top playmakers for the remainder of the 2025-26 regular season.
Leon Draisaitl is expected to miss the rest of the regular season with a lower-body injury, the Oilers announced Tuesday.
Draisaitl was injured in the first period of a Sunday matchup against the Nashville Predators after taking a hit from Preds forward Ozzy Wiesblatt.
He ranked fourth in the NHL with 97 points (35 goals, 62 assists) in his first 65 games of the season.
Connor McDavid will now be given an even larger offensive workload as he looks to help his team clinch a playoff spot over the final 14 games of the regular season.
The Oilers (33-26-9) are heading into Tuesday four points ahead of the Seattle Kraken and Los Angeles Kings for third place in the Pacific, although both the Kraken and Kings have at least one game in hand.
Falling behind either team would leave the Oilers battling for one of the two Wild Card spots in the West.
Draisaitl originally left the ice after being hit into the boards by Wiesblatt. He returned for two more shifts before leaving the game for good.
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said after the game the team’s medical staff was originally “comfortable” with Draisaitl trying to skate through his injury after examining him.
“He went out and he just didn’t feel quite right. The fact that the medical staff said it doesn’t seem too bad and there’s no immediate red flags, it tells me that it shouldn’t be a really long injury,” Knoblauch said Sunday, per NHL.com’s Gerry Moddejonge.
Draisaitl will now sit out at least a month before the regular season wraps up on April 16. The Oilers are 7-6-1 without him in the lineup over the last two seasons, per broadcaster Jack Michaels.
Edmonton has one of the easiest schedules remaining in the NHL, per Tankathon. Upcoming matchups feature multiple non-playoff teams including the Vancouver Canucks, Chicago Blackhawks and Florida Panthers.
The Oilers are also slated for what could be crucial playoff race matchups against the Kings, Kraken and San Jose Sharks.
The team will be tasked with taking on that crucial stretch with Jason Dickinson, Josh Samanski and Adam Henrique filling out the center depth chart behind McDavid.
The injury news comes as the Oilers face uncertainty in net, where coach Kris Knoblauch recently announced Connor Ingram would be taking over the starting job from Tristan Jarry.
Edmonton traded former Oilers starter Stuart Skinner to the Pittsburgh Penguins in order to complete their midseason trade for Jarry, who has posted a .854 save percentage and 4.17 goals against average in 15 appearances with his new team.
The Oilers made back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances with Skinner in net, although the team lost both times to the Florida Panthers.
Edmonton will need a strong final stretch from Ingram, in addition to some contributions from depth forwards, in order to give McDavid another shot at his first Cup.