{"id":419312,"date":"2026-01-21T06:37:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/419312\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T06:37:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T06:37:41","slug":"draisaitls-absence-an-addition-by-subtraction-so-far-for-edmonton-oilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/419312\/","title":{"rendered":"Draisaitl’s absence an addition by subtraction so far for Edmonton Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"

All eyes were on the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> crease heading into Tuesday\u2019s game against the visiting New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n

Not only were the Oilers looking to win three games in a row for the first time this season, but they had the momentum of back-to-back shutouts paving the way.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Oilers combined for 11 goals in those wins, despite being without the services of superstar centre Leon Draisaitl.<\/p>\n

Sitting fifth overall in league scoring with 67 points (25 goals, 42 assists) in 48 games, Draisaitl has been on a temporary leave of absence to tend to an illness in the family back in Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you miss somebody, somebody who is very important to your team, everyone takes notice and they step it up,\u201d said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. \u201cWhether it\u2019s because they know on paper you\u2019re not as good of a team without him, but also guys know they\u2019ve got an extra opportunity to play some more and play in different situations that maybe wouldn\u2019t have got a chance to.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve seen it on the other side. I\u2019ve seen players added to your lineup, especially after trade deadlines, you get this star and you\u2019re thinking, \u2018We\u2019re going to be so much better.\u2019 And then the team, everyone kind of relaxes and you\u2019re not as good. So, I think just with Leon being away, everyone was like, \u2018OK, we really need to step up. We need everyone to play well.\u2019 And I think that\u2019s what happened this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Call it addition by subtraction?<\/p>\n

The good news is, Draisaitl isn\u2019t expected to miss more than a handful of games in total.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re anticipating him coming back later this week,\u201d Knoblauch said.<\/p>\n

E-mail: gmoddejonge@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

On X: @StarkRavinMod<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

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You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post, and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All eyes were on the Edmonton Oilers crease heading into Tuesday\u2019s game against the visiting New Jersey Devils.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,52341,5,370,231,151,4,29423,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-419312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-edmonton","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-edmontonoilers","11":"tag-george-walker","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-leon-draisaitl","14":"tag-nashville-predators","15":"tag-new-jersey-devils","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nhl-hockey-game","18":"tag-oilers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115931712551636670","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}