{"id":277314,"date":"2026-04-20T20:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/277314\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T20:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:04:08","slug":"sources-oilers-expect-leon-draisaitl-to-return-for-game-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/277314\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Oilers expect Leon Draisaitl to return for Game 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edmonton Oilers star center Leon Draisaitl<\/a> is expected to return for Game 1 of the Western Conference quarterfinal series against the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> on Monday, sources told ESPN.<\/p>\n

Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said earlier Monday that Draisaitl was a game-time decision, as was veteran forward Jason Dickinson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl has not played since March 15 after suffering a lower-body injury against the Nashville Predators<\/a>. He briefly flew to Germany for treatment with a specialist before returning to Edmonton to continue his rehab. Draisaitl joined the team for full practices last week and practiced on Sunday with Edmonton’s top power-play unit.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl finished the regular season with 97 points (35 goals, 62 assists) in 65 games. The Oilers are looking to get over the hump with their star-studded tandem of Draisaitl and Connor McDavid<\/a> after losing in the Stanley Cup Final in each of the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

The Oilers finished second in the Pacific Division, but will have home ice over the Anaheim Ducks, who are returning to the playoffs for the first time in eight years.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl is a major boost for Edmonton, however the Oilers looked solid down the stretch winning seven of their final 11 games.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers star center Leon Draisaitl is expected to return for Game 1 of the Western Conference quarterfinal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[119800,163,824,165,164,119799,2070,750,100,404],"class_list":["post-277314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-119800","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-draisaitl-leon","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-espn","tag-news","tag-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}