New hips, same old Klingberg: Oilers veteran rediscovering form at perfect time
John Klingberg’s new hips don’t lie. When the Oilers signed the veteran D-man, the move came with a bevy of questions. But as the playoffs roll on, it’s all starting to come together at the perfect time for Edmonton. Mark Spector has the story.
LAS VEGAS — Injuries shape a playoff run, like it or not. The ones you get, the ones you avoid.
The guys plucked off your roster by the Hockey Gods — through a blocked shot or a cheap shot — and the ones who manage to stay on the ice through pro sport’s most punishing trophy chase.
The Edmonton Oilers appeared doomed when news leaked that top defender Mattias Ekholm wasn’t going to play, perhaps for the entirety of the playoffs. Then, halfway through their first-round series against Los Angeles, John Klingberg emerged from a three-year injury funk — including hip resurfacing surgery — to miraculously give Edmonton a quality of replacement minutes they never dreamed they’d get.
Evander Kane misses an entire season, undergoing two surgeries. Guys like that never contribute right away, right?
Well, somehow, after 10 months away, Kane has points in three of his first six playoff games and has been a physical presence the Oilers have lacked all season.
Trent Frederic, whose high ankle sprain might have taken him into the summer, appears healthy enough to help, his game improving every time out.
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Suddenly, Edmonton, whose regular season was butchered by missing players, has found the other side of the coin as it rides a 1-0 series lead into Game 2 at Vegas on Thursday.
“The way I move right now on the ice, I feel very comfortable with my new hips. I feel like it’s just getting better and better,” Klingberg said after his best game as an Oiler Tuesday. “It’s different, for sure, but it’s the new normal, so it takes time. Like I said from the start, it’s going to be a process, and the thing I’m very excited about is just getting better and better by every week.”
In a series-opening 4-2 win here Tuesday, Klingberg took us back to the “Covid bubble” in 2020, when he was the Dallas Stars’ best player as they lost the Stanley Cup Final to Tampa in a series played at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
Since the hip resurfacing surgery, he’s knocked around from Dallas, to Anaheim, to Minnesota, to Toronto. GM Stan Bowman signed him in February, a gamble he’ll take to the cashier’s window here in Vegas.
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“The player he was in Dallas was, like, a No. 1, game-changing D-man,” said Adam Henrique, Klingberg’s teammate in Anaheim, where he slugged through his second consecutive minus-28 campaign. “From his first couple of games here, you could see there was a difference. You could just see it in his face, really, like, that kind of pressure is off the shoulders.
“He’s just playing. Just going out there, playing, and it seems like he is who he was years ago.”
Remember last season when Connor Brown scored his first goal 55 games after returning from ACL surgery, and the fans gave him a standing ovation?
Did you see Brown on that breakaway Tuesday, walking Shea Theodore and beating goalie Adin Hill like a guy who fully expected to score?
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“Mental. Mental is the hardest part,” Brown said of recovering from a major injury. “When you take a tool out of your arsenal — like for me, my pop — you feel a little incomplete. It affects your confidence, affects your swagger. Klinger, he’s been struggling with that run of injuries over the last couple years, and I think you’re starting to see him feel good. And it just kind of rolls downhill from there.”
Klingberg started the play on two goals Tuesday with lovely outlet passes, playing just shy of 20 minutes. He took chances he hadn’t taken in forever, trusting his skills the way he had in Dallas.
Tragically, his hips left him, and Klingberg couldn’t play. Now they’re back, and he’s being lionized.
“When Klinger is at his best, it was always hard to read as a winger,” said Zach Hyman. “You don’t know which way his feet are going, because his hips are opening and turning. So, for a guy who uses his hips a lot to have that kind of surgery, it takes time, right?
“I think you saw with (Connor) Brown, with the ACL, I had my ACL (repaired). When you have a big surgery, you don’t just flip the switch. So you’re seeing a confident Klingberg, and that’s a really big help when we’re missing a big piece like (Mattias Ekholm).”
Three weeks ago, we wondered aloud what Bowman could have done with the $1.75 million in cap space he’d spent on Klingberg.
“A lot of people probably wrote him off. Wrote his career off,” Hyman said. “I mean, he’s a heck of a player.”
Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?
