EDMONTON — It was the nightmare situation Edmonton Oilers fans hoped they wouldn’t have to experience: Connor McDavid suffered a broken clavicle during the second period of Tuesday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
After the rookie phenom crashed into the boards behind the Flyers net, the crowd at Rexall Place went silent. It was a different situation online.
By the time McDavid slowly skated off the ice, holding his left shoulder, Twitter had erupted.
The Oilers stormed back in the third period without McDavid, scoring three times to beat the Flyers 4-2, but that wasn’t the focus on social media.
The talk was dominated by McDavid’s injury. From the start of Tuesday’s game to Wednesday morning there were 27,000 tweets mentioning McDavid.
READ MORE: Connor McDavid suffers ‘long-term’ injury in game against Flyers
Twitter mentions peaked at 9:32 p.m. MT with 140 tweets per minute.
A tweet from the Oilers account, quoting head coach Todd McLellan, that the injury will keep the 18-year-old out of the lineup for the long term was the most retweeted McDavid mention with 13 hundred retweets by Wednesday morning.
The Oilers said the timetable for McDavid’s return is indefinite.