In Edmonton Sunday night, Mikko Koskinen made 24 saves to backstop the Oilers to a 1-0 shut out win of the Calgary Flames.
Connor McDavid scored the lone goal of the midway in the 12-minute mark of the first period.
Connor McDavid had the game’s only goal Sunday night in win over Flames – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
“It’s a one-goal league, it always has been, and you have to find a way to win these tight games,” McDavid said. “We’ve been doing a good job to find a way to end up on the right side of the score.”
The Oilers are now 7-2-1 under new head coach Ken Hitchcock.
“First of all, Calgary is a really good team. The tempo they play at, it puts a lot of pressure on you,” Hitchcock said. “I just thought we did a really good job in the first and third period. We got away with a little bit in the second, we got caught on the stretch game. I like how we stayed with it when we got an early lead, we didn’t try to flex out. We got quality chances in the first period from playing the right way.”
The Flames dropped to 19-10-2.
“I thought we played well in the second and stayed out of the box, and then in the third, we took three [penalties] and taxed some guys,” Calgary coach Bill Peters said. “It’s hard to mount a push when you are on the kill.”
[WATCH: All Flames vs. Oilers highlights]
David Rittich made 29 saves in the hard luck loss.
“It’s always the worse kind of loss, a 1-0 game,” Rittich said. “We didn’t play our game. We just need to be better than that. We made a mistake on that goal, going two guys on one. [McDavid] was there alone. We had a talk about it, and next time we will be better.”
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