This morning the GM of the Oilers gave us some good news about Oscar Klefbom, the injury to his hand is not serious.
Shortly before the Oilers updated us via twitter, Jim Matheson of the Journal tweeted that Klefbom had a “crack… in his finger. I’m not a medical doctor (or any kind of doctor – sigh) but that sounds a lot like a fracture though the words of Peter Chiarelli give us a reason to be upbeat.
"It's not major. He may join us at some point (on the road trip)." Chiarelli with a quick update on @Klefbom93, who left Friday's game
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) December 13, 2015Losing Klefbom is a huge blow to the defense. For long stretches he has been Edmonton’s best all-around defender, and he’s performed that way while paired with very flawed partners in Fayne and Schultz.
Klefbom is Edmonton’s TOI/G leader, playing an average of 21:53 a night for the Oilers. He’s also the leading scorer from the blueline with 12 points. Even though he’s only 22 years old and has just 107 career games under his belt, he plays an integral role for the club. He is playing the most minutes and starts his shifts most often in the defensive zone.
Unfortunately his exit from the lineup, even for the short term, puts the Oilers in a bad spot. There are already too many inexperienced players carrying the load for the team, adding more is quite unpalatable. The alternative, however, is testing Ference out with Justin Schultz.
Over the last several years Justin Schultz has played 620 minutes with Ference 5v5 and the results have been a disaster. In that time the duo have ruinous shot attempt numbers.
Together they are : 49.48 CF/60, 67.64 CA/60, 42.2% CF
Both Ference and Schultz are better away from each other. There’s just something about the duo that on paper should work (wiley vet and young offensive defender) but in practice simply doesn’t. Despite this, the Oilers were forced to practice with a Ference-Schultz pairing.
To be completely honest, and I cant believe I’m saying this, I would much rather see Schultz play with Nikitin.
Scratch that, and I REALLY cant believe I’m saying this, I would much rather see Davidson get promoted and play with Schultz.
I think the injury to Klefbom really illustrates how thin the blueline is for the Oilers. If the team plans to give Reinhart as much time in the AHL as possible to develop then what’s left up at the NHL level is very fragile. This is going to put a lot of pressure on the Nurse-Sekera pairing. I fear what any additional stress will do to Justin Schultz.
I don’t know what the timeline for Klefbom would be, but one assumes that a broken/cracked finger has a lower impact on a defenseman than it might a top 6 forward. Hopefully he wont be out of the lineup too long, because Edmonton needs to stay as healthy as humanly possible as they wait for the McDavid line to return to action. Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy