It's not great watching your local National Hockey League team get blown out on primetime TV to close out the week. It's not a good feeling when your best defensive defenseman goes out with a concussion on a thursday evening. And it's even less likely that you'd feel warm and fuzzy inside if your new, young, and promising goaltender heads to injured reserve after battling to an overtime win against the Stanley Cup champions. But believe it or not, this was a good week.
In the best hockey league in the world, injuries are a part of life. The game moves at an incredible speed, and it's a contact sport. Players are going to get injured, and players are going to get better. Your team is going to win big and lose big over the course of the season as well. But this particular week of hockey showed a lot about the Edmonton Oilers, and most of it is good.
Walking wounded
Of course losing both Mattias Ekholm and Devon Levi was a blow, but if there's an ideal time for injuries to two important pieces of your roster, it's early in the season, after a strong start. The Oilers are due for some positive injury regression, and they already got both Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins back, each of whom made an immediate impact. Ekholm doesn't look to be out long term, and while it's true that the bright lights of the starter's net seemed to be too much for Tristan Jarry against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Oilers are a team that can outscore its defensive imperfections a decent amount of the time.
Losing to Toronto, like always
Losing to the Leafs sucks. The arena is half-full of away team fans, the media is always going to blow it out of proportion the next day, and Auston Matthews' moustache is an offense to the gods. The Oilers clearly can't resist playing a run-and-gun game against another offensive juggernaut, but the Leafs aren't going to be the team you need to beat to win a Stanley Cup. There was a time in the mid-2000's, when the perennial favorite Chicago Blackhawks had some difficulty dealing with a young Oilers squad in the midst of a long playoff drought. It happens.
The fact is that the Oilers started the week by avenging their loss to the Utah Mammoth, fought tooth and nail to get a win against the Minnesota Wild (something that never happened in 2025-26), and then came back and came back and came back on the Carolina Hurricanes until they grabbed the victory. It was entirely reasonable to think this could be a 0-4 week and still call the month an overall success. Instead, the team went 3-1 and they've given themselves the breathing room to avoid a loss here and there, even if it is to the Leafs.
Add us as a preferred source on Google