After a few days of strengthening and conditioning, The Edmonton Journal affirms that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is ready to go again.
"It's feeling good. I feel confident I'll be ready to go," said Nugent-Hopkins, who didn't play in Wednesday's 3-2 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars, but was back on the ice Thursday. He expects to play in the Oilers' back-to-back set against the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets, a road trip that gets underway Saturday afternoon at Joe Louis Arena.
For now, the Oilers are going to use an off-ice program designed to strengthen the area in the hopes that Nugent-Hopkins can continue playing.
"A lot of guys went through the same thing I'm going through, so it is good for me to get a feel for how they dealt with everything. I just have to make sure I take care of it," said the centre, who has five assists but is still looking for his first goal of the season. "We haven't really explored that option yet (surgery), but I'm not sure. If the time comes, I'll have to make a decision on that.
Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger said Nugent-Hopkins will get into some contact drills Friday, but he isn't expecting his young star to have problems throughout the season.
"We believe it's something we can get under control," Krueger said. "We feel we can bring him to a point where he will be pain-free for the rest of the season. What kind of hits, what kind of situations, what kind of battles does he end up in? Irrelevant of how he feels, new things can pop up, but I do feel we're getting this under control.
"The interesting thing with this injury is that we took the game off to have really good four days of training off-ice. Short term there was a price to play not having Nugent-Hopkins in the lineup, but we believe this period of time will bring him almost back up to 95-98 per cent. I'm optimistic."
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