In Edmonton, the Oilers traded goals with the Arizona Coyotes throughout regulation for a 3-3 tie leading to extra time on Wednesday night.
IN the extra session, Connor McDavid hit for second of the night, and 60th of the season, for a 4-3 win to the Oilers.
“Leon (Draisaitl) makes a great play on the first pass, and I felt like I was kind of pressing for the 60th all night, and I was disappointed not to bury that one, you’re not going to get many better looks than that,” McDavid said. “It’s not every day you get two breakaways back to back like that. He made two unbelievable plays. Just ridiculous.”
The goal came 91 seconds into the session and was his 299th career NHL goal.
“He’s going to downplay it, as we all know, but it’s pretty hard to score in this league, and to score 60 in a season and still have 10 games to go is pretty remarkable. He is just a special player,” Draisaitl said. “He obviously missed the first one [in overtime] and he was telling me he slammed his stick against the boards after. I just saw their guy bobble it, so I tried to strip him, and I saw Connor again. It is crazy to try that same move again and score on it the second time, but that is just what he does, I guess.”
Stuart Skinner made 14 saves in the Oilers win.
Clayton Keller hit for a double as well for the Coyotes.
“I think we had some good urgency,” Keller said. “It was a tough back to back for us, but I think we did a good job. We were a little sloppy at the start and we didn’t want to put them on the power play, and it was good for us to kind of just stick with it and play a mucky game and get a point out of it.”
McDavid’s first was in the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Oilers, and J.J. Moser tied it for the Coyotes, 1-1, coming out of the period.
Arizona dropped to 27-33-12.
“We worked hard, and I think the boys did a good job on a lot of fronts,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “They’re obviously really good on their power plays and that was a big factor. Our guys never quit, they kept going, they have of character, they play for each other. There are a lot of guys who are willing to suffer for each other and there is a huge brotherhood in that room.”
Keller’s first was in the middle frame for a 2-1 lead, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored his first of two on the night to even the count, 2-2, headed to the third.
“When you look at that game tonight, we gave up 17 shots on net against a team that has lost one time in regulation in their last 10 (6-1-3),” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “I think it’s important to realize Andre Tourigny and his staff do a heck of a job, his team plays very hard. They played hard tonight. Though we didn’t give up a lot, I thought there were some situations we could handle a little bit better that ended up in the back of our net.”
Keller and Nugent-Hopkins did the dance again in the third period for the 3-3 tie, forcing the extra session.
Connor Ingram made 27 saves in the Arizona loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.