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McDavid banged up and could miss tonight's Edmonton Oilers playoff game

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
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Apr 28 2026, 5:49 pm
McDavid banged up and could miss tonight's Edmonton Oilers playoff game
Perry Nelson/Imagn Images

The Edmonton Oilers are playing for their playoff lives, and they may have to do it without captain Connor McDavid.

It’s obvious that McDavid has been fighting through some kind of injury throughout this first-round series against the Anaheim Ducks. His explosiveness appears to be gone, he’s struggling to get the puck to dangerous areas, and his decision-making just seems off.

That’s a big reason why the Oilers find themselves down 3-1 in the series on the brink of elimination.

Despite all of McDavid’s playoff struggles this season, there has never been any doubt that he would be able to stay in the lineup… until now. The Oilers captain was not on the ice for the morning skate on Tuesday.

Head coach Kris Knoblauch didn’t quell those fears, calling McDavid a “game-time decision” ahead of Game 5.

“[McDavid and Jason Dickinson] are both game-time decisions,” Knoblauch confirmed after the skate.

Missing McDavid would obviously be a huge blow to an Oilers team trying to keep their season alive. Though he hasn’t been the team’s best player in the postseason thus far, he is still the heart and soul of the Edmonton roster.

It remains to be seen how Knoblauch would configure a McDavid-less Oilers lineup, but one would assume a bulk of the responsibility would fall onto Leon Draisaitl, whose line with Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen has been lighting up the Ducks this series.

That isn’t the only potential lineup change that Oilers fans could see tonight. Knoblauch made sweeping changes to the defensive group at morning skate as well. He trotted out three brand-new defensive pairs that looked like this:

Darnell Nurse – Evan Bouchard
Jake Walman – Connor Murphy
Mattias Ekholm – Ty Emberson

Nurse was moved up to the top pairing with Bouchard, while Ekholm slid all the way down to the third pair with Emberson. Walman was promoted from the bottom pair to the second and skated with Connor Murphy.

There has been no confirmation if these will be the pairs that Edmonton will use to start their first elimination game of the year. Knoblauch didn’t seem willing to commit to those new-look pairs.

“I think there will be a lot of mix and matching with the defence,” Knoblauch said. “I think it was just more of getting guys used to playing with a different partner… I think tonight there will be a little more mixing.”

Between the pipes, it will be Connor Ingram’s net once again. This is a little bit of a surprising move as Tristan Jarry gave a great performance in Game 4, barely losing off a controversial OT goal against.

Knoblauch said with the season on the line, Ingram is the guy they want in goal.

“Nothing against Jarry, I thought he had a solid game the other night,” Knoblauch said. “Ingram’s been our starter; he’s been our guy. Now that our season is on the line, we felt like we would go with our guy.”

The Oilers will either end their season tonight or live to fight another day.

Puck drop is set for 8 p.m. MDT.

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