In Edmonton, the Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl had a goal and four points, and Connor McDavid hit for a double and four points in a 5-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday.
“It felt like we were on the power play for 10 minutes straight or something like that,” said McDavid. “… It was kind of a weird period. I thought the power play did a good job of finding a way to capitalize, and I thought the rest of our group found a way to get themselves back into it. I know it was a long time to kind of sit there, so I thought they did a good job too.”
Stuart Skinner made 30 saves in the Oilers win.
Edmonton improved to 14-11-0.
The match was tight throughout the game, with the two teams locked in a 3-3 tie late the middle frame.
Nick Suzuki had a power play marker for the Habs.
“Definitely we wanted to stay more disciplined than we were,” said Suzuki, the Canadiens captain. “You just can’t take penalties when you’re down, give those guys 5-on-3s, so much time and space, and they capitalized.”
Darnell Nurse hit for what would be game-winner with five seconds left in the period for a 4-3 lead.
McDavid’s second marker of the night came in the third for the 5-3 final.
The two teams traded first period power play goals with Nick Suzuki picked up the first for Montreal for a 1-0 lead.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added his to tie it 1-1.
“I thought we were not very good for 40 minutes and we were lucky to find ourselves up one,” McDavid said. “It was kind of a weird game that way, but I thought our group did a really good job of playing a nice solid, mature third period and not giving them anything, and anything they did get, Stu kind of shut it down. So I thought it was a really good third.”
Montreal dropped to 12-11-1.
In the second, Draisaitl and McDavid scored for a 3-1 advantage before the Habs rallied to tie it.
“That first half of the second period was just one of the weirder things I’ve seen,” Suzuki said. “Just being 5-on-3 three times, you never really see that, so it was great for us to battle back, tie it up.”
Montreal’s Evgenii Dadonov and Arber Xhekaj struck for the 3-2 tie.
Jake Allen made 17 saves in the Canadiens loss.
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