Oilers drill Nashville, 7-4

In Edmonton, the Oilers are no longer a two-headed monster, it’s more like a three-headed creature from the old Greek stop-action horror movies.

Edmonton’s Evander Kane hit for a hat trick on Tuesday night, and that wasn’t even the headline in a 7-4 win over the Nashville Predators.

Connor McDavid had a pair of goals and four points, and Leon Draisaitl hit for a single marker and five points to make the marquee.

“I thought it was really good offensively,” Draisaitl said. “Sometimes when you go up early in a game like that, by three or four goals, those games can be hard sometimes because you naturally just let off the gas. They are a good team that can score and make plays, but I thought we did a pretty good job.”

Jack Campbell made 19 saves in the win for the Oilers, who have won five straight.

The Predators took a 1-0 lead in the first period off a strike from Mattias Ekholm . That was wiped out by a four-goal response from the Oilers including two from Kane.

“I thought we had a really good first period, we fought well after they scored early,” Kane said. “In the second period, we traded power-play goals. In the third, we knew we had to come out and check, we knew we had enough goals to win, we wanted to make sure that we handled their push and made sure we pushed back. We stuck with it all night and we were able to get the two points.”

Nashville have lost seven of eight to drop to 3-6-1.

Filip Forsberg had a goal for Nashville.

“[Draisaitl and McDavid] are two of the top players in this league, and I think we gave them a little too much room, especially at the start,” Forsberg said. “When we give these guys time they’re going to take advantage of it and it was a little too easy for them at times. You can’t give anyone in this league too much time, but especially not those guys.”

Derek Ryan also scored for the Oilers.

“I think if you look at the goals we gave up, there were a few things we can do better,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “One of them was a 6-on-4, but there are things we can do better. But I keep going back to the fact the team is 7-3, but we realize we’re not perfect, we have areas that we need to get better in and [penalty kill] is certainly one of them.”

Ryan Johansen and Nino Niederreiter  also scored for the Predators.

FOGO bruinsJuuse Saros made 30 saves in the Preds loss.

“We have to be better collectively in different phases of the game,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “They’re two dynamic players and they made some good plays, and they got right back in the game through skill. They had a good night tonight for sure.”