In Edmonton, the Oilers won their fourth straight game on Thursday, 7-3, over the Anaheim Ducks.
New coach Jay Woodcroft’s hiring was the instigator for the streak apparently.
Derek Ryan had a goal and two points in the win.
“I feel like we feel that everyone is getting a chance and an opportunity to provide help,” Ryan said. “Obviously, we can’t rely on Leon and Connor [McDavid] to do everything. We need support for those guys and for everyone in the top six. I think it has been good for myself to get some confidence built up to play more and to get more of an opportunity offensively. I think that has helped a lot in my game.”
Mike Smith made 27 saves in the Edmonton win.
Trevor Zegras and Sonny Milano hit for a goal each and two points in the Ducks loss.
The Ducks dropped to 23-19-9.
“We were simply outmatched,” Ducks head coach Dallas Eakins said. “We’re coming on a back to back and we were not prepared depth-wise to take on a team like that. There’s not a team in this League that has three guys down the middle like that. We all know about McDavid and Draisaitl, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins might be the most underrated player in this league.”
Leon Draisaitl hit for a double for the Oilers.
The Oilers improved to 27-18-3/
“We did a lot of good things in the first period,” Woodcroft said. “We weren’t as clean as we wanted to be; we can clean some stuff up on the penalty kill.
“We liked the way we were playing the game. I really liked how calm our bench was, they showed a little bit of push back and resiliency and found a big goal at the end of the first period and then took that into the second period.”
Evander Kane, Zach Hyman, and Warren Foegele added single markers and two points each to the win.
“I think we did a really good job of fighting off their storm there on the power play with a couple of goals,” Kane said. “We didn’t get discouraged, we battled back, set ourselves up with the second period to go into the third, and I thought we did a great job finishing.”
Adam Henrique staked the Ducks to an early 1-0 lead, the goal came off the power play.
“I thought we came out and did a great job in the first period and got a couple on the power play, but then other areas we were lacking as the game went on,” Henrique said. “Certainly, at this time of year and down the stretch we have to be able to play 60 minutes and have to be able to keep it a tight game and to play our game and not get away from that.”
Milano followed that up with a second power play strike for a 2-0 advantage.
Jesse Puljujarvi also scored for Edmonton.
John Gibson made 34 saves in the Anaheim loss.
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