The three-game sweep of the NHL starts in Edmonton where the Oilers rallied past the Montreal Canadiens to hand a second straight loss on the Habs, 4-3.
Rookie Leon Draisaitl scored twice in the win; he was called from the AHL earlier in the day.
“My flight landed at 2:30 p.m., I went to the hotel, ate quickly and came to the rink,” Draisaitl said. “For me, personally, it feels good, but this game was really important for the team as well. Not folding our hands and coming back from down 3-0, that shows the character in the room.”
Brandon Davidson and Benoit Pouliot also scored for the Oilers.
“I know Leon had a long day today, he was up really early, he was flying for the most part,” Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. “I thought he did a really good job stepping right in. There’s no sit-back from him, which is really good to see out of him.”
The Habs built a 3-0 first period lead off goals from Brendan Gallagher, Torrey Mitchell and Alex Galchenyuk.
“We were on our toes in the first, and then we were on our heels after that,” Mitchell said. “It seemed like we took our foot off the pedal, and then we were chasing it. That’s the best description for it. At the start of the second period, they were just faster than us and more aggressive than us, and we couldn’t get it back.”
In Dallas, Jamie Benn scored midway through the extra session to edge the Vancouver Canucks, 4-3.
“It’s a good thing that we believe in each other and we can do it, but I don’t want to make this a habit or a routine,” Benn said. “We want to be going into the third period with leads, and locking down those games.”
Benn leads in the NHL with 17 points this season.
Patrick Sharp had two goals and Jason Demers added a marker for Dallas.
“What’s really good to see is we had a tough time with adversity last year, and this year we’ve started off where we’re learning to battle through some tough situations and come up with some big wins,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said.
Alexandre Burrows, Alexander Edler and Radim Vrbata scored for the Canucks and Ryan Miller made 25 saves in the loss.
“It’s always a concern when you lose in the third, but they got a couple of breaks,” Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. “Then we got a couple of breaks too, but they got it going. They’re a good team, they’re going to create. They’re one of the best offensive teams in the League so it’s that they’re going to go through the third without chances.”
Antti Niemi made 29 saves for the Stars.
In Tampa, the visiting Colorado Avalanche got a solid effort from across the bench and stopped the Lightning, 2-1.
Semyon Varlamov made 34 saves in the win.
“I felt good today,” Varlamov said. “[This] was an important game. It was a huge game for us because we need to bring confidence back to the team.”
Alex Tanguay and Nathan MacKinnon scored for the Avs.
“We all can score, it’s a good mix, we seem to mesh very pretty well,” MacKinnon said. “I thought we controlled the play and were good defensively. Definitely a lot of positives.”
Alex Killorn scored on the power play for the Bolts.
“We played a good, solid game 5-on-5, I think they only scored on the power play,” Tanguay said. “We’ll take the two points; it’s two points we desperately need right now. We have to continue to play with that same urgency. We have to want the puck and want to make plays with it and hopefully bounces will come our way.”
Killorn’s goal was the first for the Bolts after being shutout in two straight road games.
“We scored one but it seems like we’ve had a ton of chances,” Killorn said. “Their goalie played well. That’s the way things have been going lately, we just have to get over this hump. There’s ebbs and flows during the season. It’s too bad that a goal drought happens early on but we’ve been through this before.”
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