McDavid injury a salary cap disaster for the Oilers.

The Edmonton Oilers have not gotten off to the start they would have liked this season and certainly not the kind of start that many of their fans had expected from the franchise, and on Sunday things went from bad to worse. The Oilers announced that captain Connor McDavid would be out for a not insignificant length of time, one that would result in him missing the Heritage Classic.

Losing a player the level of McDavid is always going to be a disaster for a team in the National Hockey League but this particular injury is even more catastrophic for the Oilers who have now been placed in a very undesirable situation. Not only have the Oilers lost their best player, but a combination of the length of McDavid's injury as well as the Oilers salary cap situation has left them in close to a worst case scenario.

The Oilers are up against the cap and McDavid won't be out long enough for the team to place him on long term injured reserve which means the Oilers will get no salary cap relief during his absence. This combination of factors will leave the Oilers unable to call up any help from the minors.

The Oilers are currently carrying the bare minimum number of players with 18 skaters and 2 goaltenders and will be unable to make any roster adjustments in response to this injury without sending another player down first to make room. The Oilers are quite literally trapped in salary cap hell and it's hard to imagine this occurring at a worse time for a team that was already struggling this season.