Speaking with head coach Kris Knoblauch following Sunday's practice, the Edmonton Oilers head coach confirmed that a pair of injury setbacks to two prominent roster members will likely impact the team he runs with as the regular season kicks off on Wednesday night.
The good news is that the bug that was affecting the team this week has likely done its damage. The illness kept Stuart Skinner from traveling to Vancouver for the final preseason game and impacted a few others. When asked if the bug had worked its way through had done its damage, Knoblauch seemed to think so.
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The bad news was that a couple of players aren't going to be ready to start the season.
Defenseman Jake Walman was projected to be in the lineup when Edmonton opened the 2025-26 regular season against the Calgary Flames. That now appears doubtful. Walman wasn't on the ice with the team Sunday, and when asked if Walman was trending towards playing, the response was, "Ya, he's a question mark to play Wednesday. It was a little bit of a setback... Now it's look questionable on Wednesday. We're definitely hoping he'll be able to go Saturday."
It was also confirmed that Mattias Janmark is still out with an injury. "I'm not sure what the actual term will be. He's probably out for 1-2 weeks, that's not probably not long-term injury reserve," Knoblauch said.
The Oilers did an MRI on Janmark and realized that there were two injuries. Knoblauch actually called that good news because it meant the first issue wasn't nagging. "The fact that you have a new injury was actually good news for us, rather than something he was going to have to play with for the season."
As for Zach Hyman, Knoblauch confirmed there's a plan for when he'll join the team for on-ice sessions and pre-game skates. That should be next week, but he won't likely travel on the first road trip of the season through New York.
What Does This Mean Over The Next Couple Of Days?
PuckPedia laid out a scenario that seems realistic for the Oilers over the next 48 hours. The team could assign David Tomasek and Ike Howard to the AHL (neither impacted by waivers) while placing Mattias Janmark on injured reserve. To meet roster requirements, the Oilers will likely add a temporary depth player with a $775K cap hit — someone like James Hamblin — to finalize their opening-night submission, leaving them with $834 in remaining cap space.
Once Zach Hyman is moved to LTIR, Edmonton will be able to exceed the cap by roughly $3.8 million, just $834 shy of the optimal configuration. By Wednesday (Day 2 for cap purposes), the Oilers would recall Tomasek and/or Howard and send the temporary player back down, which would leave the club with about $1.8 million in usable LTIR space moving forward.
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