Don\u2019t expect Leon Draisaitl back for the start of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
While there was hope that Edmonton\u2019s second-leading scorer would be ready to go for Game 1 of the first round, that might be a little optimistic.<\/p>\n
Draisaitl, who\u2019s been out since injuring his knee March 15 against Nashville, will return to the ice this week to begin his road back, but it is a long, careful process that head coach Kris Knoblauch doesn\u2019t think will be fast enough to get him into the mix for the Oilers opening round series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t anticipate him playing any games in the regular season,\u201d said Knoblauch. \u201cAnd in the playoffs, sometime in the first round if things go well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not Game 1?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not ruling that out, but I would anticipate sometime in the first (round),\u201d said Knoblauch, adding the initial prognosis called from some time in mid to late April, and they\u2019re sticking with that.<\/p>\n
The Oilers wrap up the regular season April 16, a Thursday, and the post season would be a few days later, likely the Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a period of time we anticipated him returning and we said it was going to be right around the end of the regular season and start of the playoffs,\u201d said Knoblauch. \u201cIf he gets in that first game, great, but he has not been on the ice yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll be on the ice sometime this week and we\u2019ll have an indication of how that\u2019s going to go, but it\u2019ll probably be sometime in that first round.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Hyman, Knoblach hopes he can make it back for one of Edmonton\u2019s last two games of the season, but that\u2019s also an estimate at this point.<\/p>\n
E-mail:\u00a0rtychkowski@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.<\/a><\/p>\n 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. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t expect Leon Draisaitl back for the start of the playoffs. While there was hope that Edmonton\u2019s second-leading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[233,5862,198,146,5300,5,2854,370,2409,4,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-544259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-david-bloom","10":"tag-edmonton","11":"tag-edmonton-oilers","12":"tag-edmontonoilers","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-kris-knoblauch","15":"tag-leon-draisaitl","16":"tag-nashville","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-oilers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116359460518424506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544259","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=544259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}