BLOG: Yamamoto confirmed ready to return after Thursday's skate

EDMONTON, AB - No question about Kailer Yamamoto -- he'll be good to go for the Edmonton Oilers against the New York Rangers on Friday night.
When posed a question by a media member after Thursday's practice at Rogers Place toward the forward's progression back from injury, Head Coach Jay Woodcroft wasn't leaving anything on Yamamoto's status for Friday's visit from the Blueshirts up to different interpretations.
"No, he's ready," the coach said. "He'll be in the game tomorrow."
The Spokane, Wash. product has missed 12 games with a nagging injury after last suiting up and registering an assist in a 6-2 win on the road on Jan. 12 over the Anaheim Ducks. Missing Wednesday's date with Detroit brought the 24-year-old's tally to 24 games missed due to injury this season across three separate stints on the sidelines -- two of which have been lengthy month-plus absences.
Yamamoto was originally eligible to be activated off Long Term Injured Reserve (LTIR) on Sunday afternoon, but a few extra days to recover are hopefully going to be what the right-winger needs to put this nagging injury behind him so he can get up to speed for the final push to the playoffs.
"I think these last couple of days, I've been trending in the right direction here for a little bit," he said. "But I think those last couple of extra days definitely helped and feeling really good right now."
"It's definitely time to put it in the rear-view (mirror). "Like I said, it's been lingering for a while. I think it's time to take the step and move past this and look forward to the rest of the season."

What Woodcroft couldn't reveal, however, is the corresponding roster move that needs to be made in order to open up room for Yamamoto's cap hit before the Oilers take to the ice against the high-octane New York Rangers at Rogers Place on Friday night.
"Yes," Woodcroft confirmed of the Oilers needing to make a roster move before tomorrow's game. "Ken (Holland)'s got a lot of balls in the air, and the one thing I do know is that Yamo is going to play in the game tomorrow."
The Oilers were without Evander Kane, Jesse Puljujarvi and Vincent Desharnais for practice on Thursday, with Woodcroft confirming maintenance days for all three players. Kane didn't practice the day prior to playing 19:00 of ice time on Wednesday against the Wings, while Desharnais was kept out of the lineup due to illness.
"Yeah, we had a couple of maintenance days going on and kept some people off the ice to make sure they're getting the right amount of rest," the coach said.

As a direct result of a pair of goals they conceded to the Detroit Red Wings in Wednesday's 5-4 shootout defeat, the Oilers practice itinerary at Rogers Place on Thursday afternoon had a major focus in and around the faceoff circle.
Edmonton won 54 percent of its draws on the night, but what led to and what happened on two separate Detroit goals that came directly off draws were what concerned Head Coach Jay Woodcroft enough to centre his team's skate around improving this aspect of their game.
"Let's start with what led to those faceoffs," Woodcroft said. "I thought there were two very makeable plays where the puck was on our tape and we iced the puck when we didn't need to. That happens. It happens for every team throughout an 82-game schedule, but I thought we could handle those situations better, so that's number one.
"Number two, both of those draws were snapped back, so it wasn't 50/50 puck. It wasn't a car crash in the face-off dot, so they were snapped back clean. That's on our centres where we can better, so that's two small things about it."

Moritz Seider's centring shot from the left corner late in the first period struck an unsuspecting Philip Broberg before beating Jack Campbell short side.
"In terms of the coverages, I would say the one in the first period where their defenceman went down the wall, they went down the wall, they shot a puck and went off our player and into the net," Woodcroft said. "You try and coach every second. Sometimes the game happens like that, and we'll live with that one. It's a bad angle shot that went in off our defenceman's butt and in the net."
"I think it's just an unlucky situation," Broberg recalled. "I don't know if I could have done anything else, but it's just unfortunate and just move on. Just let that go and look forward to the next game."
Olli Maatta's point shot a period later was less of a stroke of luck for Detroit and more missed coverage for the Oilers that was quickly dispatched behind Campbell in the few seconds after a clean face-off win from Dylan Larkin.
"The one in the second period I felt we could have been in the shooting lane for. Now, that was an atypical one because of where it was won, but I felt we could have been in the shooting lane."