In Edmonton Monday night, the Florida Panthers’ Vincent Trocheck struck for a hat trick in the third period to help the Panthers to a 7-5 win over the Oilers.
The win pushed the Panthers over ,500 at 24-23-6; they’ve won five of their six games.
“I thought we played well. They have a lot of skill on that team and get into a lot of run-and-gun games,” Trocheck said. “We tried to slow the game down a little bit. Five goals-against isn’t ideal, but I thought we played pretty well. We were able to put the puck in the net ourselves. We have been getting a lot of chances this last stretch, and it was just a matter of putting them in the net. We haven’t been doing that, so it was good to have that on the road.”
Evgenii Dadonov added two goals in the win.
Edmonton’s goals came from Patrick Maroon, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Drake Caggiula.
“We definitely need to tighten it up,” McDavid said. “Obviously, we’ve been giving up a bunch of goals and it’s more how we’re giving them up, breakaways and open shots in the slot, not really giving [Talbot] a chance. But definitely frustrating when we’re scoring five goals and we’re still losing the game. It definitely can’t happen.”
James Reimer made 27 saves to get the win and worked through rough stretches even in the third when the Oilers tried to respond with two goals.
“It was kind of a weird game, it wasn’t exactly a goalies duel,” Reimer said. “I don’t think either goalie would be too excited about being in a 7-5 game. I just kept digging in and told myself to make the next save and hang in there.”
Aaron Ekblad and Denis Malgin added single markers for Florida.
“You have to have secondary scoring on any team if you want to have success, especially from the back end. I know we have the skill to do it. It is just about being consistent every night,” the Panthers’ Keith Yandle said after the win.
[WATCH:Â All Panthers vs. Oilers highlights]
Cam Talbot made 33 saves in the loss.
“I’d say about four of them I’d like to have back,” Talbot said. “Any time you go out and score five goals, you should win a game every night. I didn’t give us a chance to win tonight. I liked our battle level, our compete, our resiliency. Every time I let one in, we got one back, but I just couldn’t find that next save to give us a chance.”
The Oilers dropped to 23-28-4.
“Individual responsibly has to go way up. We have to play some players, it’s not like we can sit everybody out, so it has to improve,” Oilers head coach Todd McLellan said after the game exhibiting some deep frustration at his team’s effort.
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