Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Won’t Play Saturday vs. Flames
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins will not play in the latest version of the Battle of Alberta on Saturday night. Nugent-Hopkins will miss the Oilers game with the Flames tomorrow with an undisclosed injury. This will be the second straight game missed for the 27-year-old who was also out for Edmonton’s 3-1 win over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night. The Oilers General Manager Ken Holland said on Friday the team hopes to get their forward back in the lineup by April 17 when Edmonton takes on the Winnipeg Jets. If that is the case, Nugent-Hopkins will miss the team’s next two scheduled games. Edmonton has a two-game set with the Vancouver Canucks slated for Monday and Wednesday next week, but they will most likely get postponed because of their COVID-19 outbreak. It’s unclear if Holland commented on RNH’s return, figuring their games with Vancouver would be postponed. Nugent-Hopkins is having a solid season for the Oilers with 12 goals and 16 assists in 40 games. For now, consider the former first overall draft pick day-to-day.
Over at the FanDuel Sportsbook, the Edmonton Oilers have some interesting futures bets available that they’ll have a better shot at with Nugent-Hopkins in the lineup. They sit at +1000 to win the North division, where they currently trail the Toronto Maple Leafs by five points. Edmonton has even longer odds at +2000 to win this year’s Stanley Cup.