{"id":597560,"date":"2026-04-21T12:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/597560\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T12:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:43:11","slug":"leon-draisaitl-returns-for-edmonton-oilers-in-game-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/597560\/","title":{"rendered":"Leon Draisaitl returns for Edmonton Oilers in Game 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edmonton Oilers<\/a> star center Leon Draisaitl<\/a> was activated off injured reserve, took the ice for pregame warmups and is playing in Game 1 of the Western Conference quarterfinal series against the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said earlier Monday that Draisaitl was a game-time decision, as was veteran forward Jason Dickinson<\/a>. Both players took the ice with their teammates.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl had 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 Sunday with Edmonton’s top power-play unit.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/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, but the Oilers looked solid down the stretch, winning seven of their final 11 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers star center Leon Draisaitl was activated off injured reserve, took the ice for pregame warmups and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-597560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}