Leon Draisaitl met with doctors Monday morning to evaluate his lower body injury and, while the diagnosis isn’t being made public, head coach Kris Knoblauch confirmed that the Edmonton Oilers superstar is going to miss some time.

How much, exactly, remains to be seen, but when a club has to forge ahead without a player who’s as valuable to Draisaitl at a such a crucial time in the season, it’s going to hurt.

“I think there will be some time without him,” said Knoblauch, who lost Draisaitl five minutes into Sunday’s game against the Nashville Predators after a hit by Ozzy Wiesblatt.

“I’m not sure if it will be one (game), two or how long it’s going to be. I don’t have much information right now.”

It’s a bit of a fine line between needing him back for some very important games, starting with Tuesday’s four-pointer against the San Jose Sharks, and making sure he does not come back one second too soon. The last thing they need is a recurring situation that slows him down for the rest of the way.

“We don’t want to aggravate it, make it worse,” said Knoblauch. “We’re obviously looking at the big picture, but the games are important — there is nothing for sure right now about us making the playoffs. We need to win hockey games, but if he’s not healthy to play he’s not going to play.”

The thing that scares people is that this is Draisaitl we’re talking about. He has the pain threshold of a corpse, willing to play through just about any sort of discomfort. So if he’s telling them it hurts too much to play, or it’s in a spot where playing could risk further and more severe damage, it’s a concern.

“I saw him numerous times play through injuries,” said Knoblauch. “The Vancouver series a couple of years ago, I remember seeing him in the morning and he was questionable, doubtful probably. I thought there is no way he’s going to play and sure enough he was playing and he was one of the best players.

“He plays through a lot of pain and can play at a very high level, But if he’s not able to play and it’s something that could get worse, that’s different.”

The Oilers were without Draisaitl for three games in mid January while he was back in Germany attending to a family matter and the club went 2-1, posting 6-0 and 5-0 wins over Vancouver and St. Louis and losing 2-1 to New Jersey. That was some of their best defensive handiwork of the season.

Against Nashville, where Draisaitl played just 3:12, they snuffed the Predators 3-1.

“It’s a testament to everybody digging in and doing what was necessary to win,” said defensive centre Jason Dickinson. “You don’t need to win games by large margins, one goal is all you need to win a game.

“If we’re able to mitigate scoring chances, if we’re able to keep them to the outside, usually that’s a good recipe for success, and from there the skill can take over and score the goals that we need to score and get the job done.”

They are never going to replace Draisaitl’s all around game — there might not be a player in the league who possess all of Draisaitl’s tools — but the Oilers have shown they can lock it down and win in other ways when he’s not there.

They’ll need that again this week.

“Our game is going to take a dip on the offensive side, especially on the power play and five-on-five,” said Knoblauch. “When you don’t have one of the best players on the ice playing 20 to 24 minutes a night, your offence is going to dip.

“It’s really important that our team simplifies it’s game,” said Knoblauch. “Defence is a very important thing. We’re not going to be able to score as many goals, we can’t outscore our troubles so it’s very important that we play good defensive hockey.”

E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com

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