Things are looking better for the Edmonton Oilers health-wise ... except maybe for Oscar Klefbom.
Let’s get to the good news, though.
Two key forwards resumed skating on Friday: Connor McDavid and Nail Yakupov.
McDavid seemed pretty happy with how things went two months after he broke his collarbone in a freak bit of bad luck. You can see full video of his comments above.
“It’s good to feel normal again and be out there with them,” McDavid said. “Today was a little bit of a lighter practice, they were getting ready for tomorrow’s game but it was still a lot of fun to be out there.”
He pointed out that, with an upper-body injury, McDavid can keep his legs fresh, which could be good news regarding 2015’s No. 1 pick hitting the ground running whenever he returns.
(The team only really said that he’s on schedule, which isn’t super-useful since previous updates were a little opaque.)
Speaking of portions of a body being injured, that Klefbom update, which is troubling while also being vaguely amusing:
Coach McLellan says @Klefbom93 is dealing with both an upper-body and lower-body ailment, return not expected in the short term.
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) January 1, 2016
The issue being not-short-term: not funny. Calling him injured in both his upper and lower-body: kinda funny.
Anyway, with the Oilers hitting a lull after showing some serious signs of improvement, it’s heartening that two of their No. 1 overall picks are that much closer to returning to the lineup.