December NHLE - Injuries Are Slowing Everyone Down

December was a brutal month for the Oilers' prospect group. Injuries have hit the big club hard, but they're hitting the system even harder. I've been tracking thirty-three Oilers' prospects since October, the total includes nineteen forwards and thirteen defensemen. Of those thirty-three prospects, twelve of them missed at least three games in December due to injuries.

To get a sense of how much those injuries have impacted the prospects and their NHL numbers, we can use Gabriel Desjardins' NHL Equivalency. Gabe's methodologies are described on his translations page:

One way to evaluate the difficulty of one league relative to another is to examine the relative performance of players who have played in both leagues. Players rarely play significant time in two leagues in the same year, but they often play in one league in one year and in another the next. As long as a player’s skill level is approximately constant over this two year period, the ratio of his performance in each league can be used to estimate the relative difficulty of the two leagues.

After the jump is the full list of skating prospects with their NHL Equivalency and full season projections.

• Linus Omark is due to have the cast removed in two weeks and will need at least two weeks of rehab and workouts before he can return.
• Phil Cornet was dinged up as well, but is back in the lineup for the Barons.
• Teemu Hartikainen returned to the lineup after Christmas and registered one assist in three games.
• Antti Tyrvainen returned from injury in December after recovering from a broken arm.

• Martin Gernat, Martin Marincin, David Musil and Oscar Klefbom all left their teams for the World Junior Championship.
• Alex Plante was concussed during his callup and remains with the Oilers while he recovers. He lucked out, if you can call it that, in that he was injured in the NHL. Unlike Omark, Plante will collect an NHL salary while he's on IR.
• Taylor Fedun took his first steps in December. Let's hope he's skating by next December.