Nurse and Kane injured, will miss start of Oilers training camp: report
The Edmonton Oilers will be without two key players to start training camp in just a week or so.
With most of the team now in Edmonton and participating in a few captain’s skates before, a new report from Edmonton Sports Talk‘s Tom Gazzola has both forward Evander Kane and defenceman Darnell Nurse missing the start of the main camp with injuries.
“Hearing that Evander Kane & Darnell Nurse are expected to start training camp on the shelf due to injury,” Gazzola reported in a social media post.
Hearing that Evander Kane & Darnell Nurse are expected to start training camp on the shelf due to injury.
Nurse has been on the ice for informal skates & continues to heal up a lingering injury from the playoffs. The projection is he will be good to go later in camp.
— Tom Gazzola (@TomGazzola) September 11, 2024
Kane being out to start training camp shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to Oilers fans. The 33-year-old power forward played through a sports hernia during last year’s playoff run and wound up missing Games 3 to 7 of the Stanley Cup Final with an injury.
There was a belief that the Oilers would put him on LTIR to begin the season, but recent comments from GM Stan Bowman made that unclear. In any sense, Kane missing the start of the regular season has been seen as a real possibility for a while.
The real shocker is the fact that Nurse is suffering from some sort of injury. The 29-year-0ld veteran defenceman will be a key part of an Oilers defensive group that has seen quite a bit of upheaval over the offseason.
As Gazzola mentioned, Nurse has been skating in Edmonton with his teammates. Daily Hive reported him being out early along with the team’s goaltender during Tuesday morning’s skate at the DCA in Rogers Place.
Here is the brief video I got of Nurse skating early at yesterday morning's skate at the DCA. @TomGazzola is reporting that both Nurse and Kane will be sidelined with injuries to start training camp https://t.co/nxii1iz2th
— Preston Hodgkinson (@NHLHodgkinson) September 11, 2024
If Nurse is unable to participate in training camp, this will be the second straight year the team will be without a top-four defender in camp after Mattias Ekholm was sidelined in 2023. It will also limit head coach Kris Knoblauch’s ability to test out Nurse with a new partner following the departures of both Cody Ceci and Vincent Desharnais.
It’s not the greatest news to get at the start of a new season, but the Oilers will now have to plan around these injuries. Maybe it will give rise to a bigger opportunity for Travis Dermott, who is expected to join the team on a PTO.