In Edmonton, the Oilers made quick work of their match with the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night.
The Oilers scored four times in the first period en route to an 8-2 shellacking of the Ducks.
Connor McDavid hit for a goal and five points in the win.
“Obviously it’s big, but all it is is two wins, and we need another one on Tuesday (against the Vegas Golden Knights),” McDavid said. “We just have to keep rolling our game over, and that’s all there is to it.
“The team game has definitely been simpler. (It’s) something that we talked about, and you know I thought guys have done a great job of buying into that. We’re a good forechecking team, we really are. And when we use that to our strength, we can make it a half ice game pretty quick. That’s something that we need to keep doing.”
Edmonton moved to 7-12-1.
“[McDavid is] the leader of this team,” Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse said. “We’ve played some really good hockey over the last two games and over stretches before that. We’ve been playing a little more simple and finding ways to get leads and in the last two games. … Some good signs, a couple of good wins in a row, but we have to keep it going.”
Stuart Skinner made 21 saves in the win.
Max Jones scored twice for the Ducks, his first gave them a 1-0 lead at 3″22Â in the first period.
“We started good and that was one of our priorities, we just blew coverages,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “They’ve got, obviously, a fast team and we let them get behind us, and you can’t do that against the Edmonton Oilers.
“It’s terrible to be on the losing side of an 8-2 game, but talking to (general manager) Pat Verbeek afterwards, a lot of our guys are not used to seeing McDavid or Draisaitl, and the team’s fast, so we’ll learn from it. We’re on a bit of a losing streak. We’ve got to figure out a way to get out of it.”
The Oilers replied with a strike from Evander Kane two minutes later for a 1-1 tie.
Jones hit for his double at 6:21 for a 2-1 lead to the Ducks.
“It’s just funny the way the game works sometimes. There were a lot of goals right off the bat there, momentum switching both ways, and I think that’s something you’ve kind of got to stay on top of when you get in games like that and be resilient,” Jones said. “Obviously, when you lose a game like that it’s definitely frustrating, but you’ve just got to move on and try to figure it out.”
It was all Edmonton after that with seven unanswered goals.
“I thought they played a lot more responsible, a lot more direct hockey,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “The first five or probably 10 or 15 minutes for sure was a little sloppy, I thought we were happy with just exchanging chances. Most often we can win a lot of games by doing that because you exchange chances and your skill is probably going to finish more chances than the opposition’s chances. I think in the long run when you’re playing good teams that don’t exchange chances you are running into trouble, and something we don’t want to get into is playing that type of hockey. I thought they did a heck of a job the last 50 minutes. We gave up 11 shot in the last 50 minutes of hockey, so I think they were playing pretty responsible from then.”
McDavid scored midway through the period for a 2-2 tie.
“They go up 2-1 again and we find a way to get back into the game. That is something we have kind of been missing throughout the year, so it was good to see a little bit of resilience there,” McDavid said. “Confidence is obviously a big part of it. I think our whole team is playing better and I think that is why you are starting to see guys have success.
“It is not just a light switch that one or two guys can just turn on, it takes a whole group and I thought our group has been playing better of late and you are starting to see guys have a little bit of success. And a little bit too is it just going in. Guys are making plays and it is just going in.”
Edmonton tacked on two more in the middle frame on markers from James Hamblin and Hyman’s double for a 6-2 lead after the middle frame.
In the third, Leon scored off the power play at 7:11, and Mattias Ekholm added a second power play strike for the 8-2 final.
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