Zach Hyman left Game 4 with an upper body injury that appeared to be either a shoulder or wrist injury and while fans held their breath, hoping for good news it appears that Hyman has a broken wrist and will certainly miss the remainder of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Losing Hyman is a tough blow to the Edmonton Oilers but it's the playoffs and injuries happen.

For the Edmonton Oilers, their mantra for these playoffs has been "next man up." Kapanen was scratched for the start of the playoffs but came in during the Vegas series and scored the series winner. Stecher came in for Emberson and has looked strong and a natural partner for Darnell Nurse. Arvidsson was scratched for a time and when he came back in he was flying and a hound on the puck and bringing some more physicality.

These Edmonton Oilers are a deep team and one injury, even to a key player shouldn't change how they play. A man down for most of Game 4 the Oilers still managed to put on a defensive clinic in the final two periods against the Stars.

The Oilers will have two players in their lineup tonight who have not played any or much at all in the playoffs; Jeff Skinner and Mattias Ekholm. For Skinner, he has not played since Game 1 of the playoffs where he wasn't much worse than the rest of the team that floundered beside him but Knoblauch clearly has a type of player he does and does not value. Skinner will start on a third line with Henrique and Frederic.

Ekholm meanwhile has ont played since late in the regular season and early on it seemed like a pipe dream to see him playing again this season yet here we are. I thought the Oilers might go 11/7 when the Viking returned but we will see a defense group of Ekholm-Bouchard, Walman-Klingberg, and Kulak-Nurse tonight.

The Oilers have heavily outplayed the Stars at 5 on 5 throughout this series but the Stars have been around the net and just haven't been able to bury their chances but that isn't to say they won't find a way to. The Oilers need to commit to their zone coverage that has worked so well throughout this series and let Stuart Skinner see the puck.

Should be another exciting game but the job isn't done yet. We can talk about the Stanley Cup Finals IF the Oilers move past the Stars. They will have a good shot at it tonight.

Thanks for reading.

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