In Edmonton, Leon Draisaitl scored a power play goal in the first period, and Keith Yamamoto hit for a shorthanded strike for a 2-0 lead to the Oilers over the New York Islanders on Thursday night.
The Oilers held off the Isles for a 4-2 win to end their five-game home skid.
“It was a good team win for us,” Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. “We controlled the game right from the drop of the puck and were able to finish it out. We have a lot of really proud people in our dressing room, and I saw them come together and play hard for each other. Nobody was happy with not closing some games out on this home stand and it’s a credit to our players, they went out and executed. They played hard for each other and found a way to win a game.”
The Oilers improved to 21-17-2.
Jack Campbell made 20 saves in the win.
“It’s huge for our group, you have to be good on home ice,” Campbell said. “We met yesterday, and it was a big game for us. The guys responded well and we got a big two points.”
The Oilers outshot the Isles, 18-4 in the fist period.
“We knew they were going to come hard and that’s fine, but we failed to make little plays and you have to make little plays to get pucks out of your zone when teams are coming at you hard, and we didn’t do that,” Islanders coach Lane Lambert said. “It didn’t help that we gave their power play two chances early on, and they gained a bunch of momentum after that. We just have to be better and that’s it.”
Mathew Barzal scored in the second period to cut the Oilers lead to 2-1.
New York dropped to 22-16-2.
“We got off to a bad start. They came at us and we were unable to get going north,” New York defenseman Ryan Pulock said. “It’s just a matter of bearing down. It’s a matter of everybody individually having themselves ready to go and play the right way, the way that we can play. When we don’t do that, we don’t have a lot of success.”
Dylan Holloway and Zach Hyman scored to give the Oilers a 4-1 lead.
“It was nice to get a win at home. It had been a little while, too long for us,” Hyman said. “We started off really well and made an emphasis on playing a full 60 [minutes]. Even though they got that goal at the end of the second period, we didn’t fall off our game, we didn’t deter. We just kept playing our game and weren’t on our heels, we were pushing the pace and I think that’s what you need to do.”
Cal Clutterbuck scored for New York with 53 seconds left in the game for the 4-2 final.
Ilya Sorokin made 34 saves in the Isles loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.