Significant concerns for Arvidsson were raised by Oilers fans when his day-to-day problem progressed to missing over a month with an undisclosed injury.
Arvidsson revealed that he had actually been playing through the injury for most of his 16 games this season, and after taking time off to fully deal with the problem, it didn't heal up as fast as expected.
Coach Knoblauch addressed the fact that Arvidsson missed so much time unexpectedly after being initially listed as day to day, too.
The Oilers coach hinted that he may have been able to play through in the playoffs, but they took a cautious approach for now to hope it heals long term.
Some fans have the concern that Arvidsson could be an injury prone player, raising the fact that he's only played more than 66 games 3 times in the 11 seasons of his NHL career.
However, if he was dealing with a nagging injury that could be rested and no longer a problem for later in the season, that needs to be the priority.
The Edmonton Oilers arguably made that mistake by letting Evander Kane play through injury last year, and he couldn't make it to the last games of the Cup Final, and now has missed this whole season recovering from surgery.
Viktor Arvidsson only has 2 goals in 16 games this season after signing in Edmonton with the expectation he can be a quality offensive player. Hopefully this time off has allowed him to recover from this injury, and allow him to bring his best hockey yet for the rest of the season.
More details and analysis to come.
POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 19 | 155 ANSWERS Coach Knoblauch and Viktor Arvidsson Finally Reveal Details of Major Undisclosed Injury Do you think Arvidsson can score more or less than 30 goals for the Oilers this year? | ||
More | 29 | 18.7 % |
Less | 126 | 81.3 % |
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