{"id":496584,"date":"2026-02-24T15:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/496584\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:53:14","slug":"edmonton-oilers-top-6-winger-out-with-injury-but-veteran-centre-checks-back-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/496584\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers Top 6 winger out with injury but veteran centre checks back in"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This in from Paige Martin of Oilers TV, news that Top 6 winger Kasperi Kapanen is now out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cKris Knoblauch says Kasperi Kapanen is expected to miss the first two games of this road trip. Adam Henrique is expected to be good to go. When asked about Kapanen, Knoblauch referred to it as \u2018a little ailment, different injury\u2019 referring to what Kapanen was battling earlier in the year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"ct:story;elm:img;itc:0;\" class=\"stretched-box\" href=\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/edmontonjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/58.jpg\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"58 games\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"914\" height=\"1104\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/8bd302ecb846256debfa0f3f2f8ab425.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>58 games<\/p>\n<p>My take<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">1. Hard to know what to make of this without knowing exactly why Kapanen is missing. He\u2019s already had an injury marred season missing more than two months of play. When he came back to the line-up, however, he was a beast on the wing with Leon Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin, scoring 10 points in 13 games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">2. Henrique has struggled with the speed of the game as a third line centre, but he\u2019s still a valuable role player, especially on the penalty kill. Can Henrique help a failing Oilers PK? Help is much needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">3. The Oilers also have to find a way to get third-line centre Josh Samanski back into the line-up. Samanski is back in Bakersfield after playing a big role for Germany at the Olympics. Samanski played five good games for the Oilers in January and the team needs him in NHL games pronto to see if he\u2019s the answer at third-line centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">P.S. Team Canada head coach Jon Cooper on 3-on-3 Overtime in Olympics: \u201cYou take four players off the ice, now hockey\u2019s not hockey anymore. There\u2019s a reason overtime and shootouts are in play \u2014 it\u2019s all TV-driven to end games, so it\u2019s not a long time. There\u2019s a reason why it\u2019s not in the Stanley Cup final or playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the Cult of Hockey<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ca.news.yahoo.com\/biggest-game-life-hockey-worlds-083004789.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:STAPLES: \u2018Impossible we just lost\u2019: Hockey world reacts to USA, 2, Canada,1, gold medal game;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">STAPLES: \u2018Impossible we just lost\u2019: Hockey world reacts to USA, 2, Canada,1, gold medal game<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This in from Paige Martin of Oilers TV, news that Top 6 winger Kasperi Kapanen is now out.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[22975,49,48,23752,453,155799,23987,25908,199080,197420,452,23989],"class_list":{"0":"post-496584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-adam-henrique","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-edmonton","12":"tag-edmonton-oilers","13":"tag-kasperi-kapanen","14":"tag-kris-knoblauch","15":"tag-leon-draisaitl","16":"tag-paige-martin","17":"tag-rogers-arena","18":"tag-vancouver-canucks","19":"tag-vasily-podkolzin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}