In Edmonton, the Oilers had no intention of being threatened by the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night.
Chicago had an opportunity to go 5-0-0 under the new bench boss, but that was not to be.
The Oilers scored four straight goals to open the game in a 4-1 first period.
Connor McDavid (17-game point streak), Tyson Barrie, Kailer Yamamoto, and Ryan McLeod scored in the first period for the 4-0 Oilers lead.
“We capitalized on some chance and we gave up a couple of chances, and Skinner was sharp early,” Edmonton head coach Dave Tippett said. “I think it was good for him to jump right in the game. I think in the first shift he had a Grade-A chance against him, and he made a good save. He got in the game early and we capitalized on some chances, got a 5-on-3 and capitalized there, and then we were kind of off and running.”
Stuart Skinner made 29 saves in the Edmonton win.
“I liked the win. I thought we were a little loose, especially early,” McDavid said. “I liked our second period. I thought we gave them chances that we probably shouldn’t have given them, but overall, I like that we won.”
Alex DeBrincat hit for the pair of Chicago goals.
“It’s tough, you never want to do that. You make a couple of mistakes and it’s in the back of your net,” DeBrincat said. “We have to clean that up a bit, but I thought the first bit of the first period we played well, we had a lot of zone time, but obviously not well enough. They have really good team, they’re going to make you pay when you turn it over, and they have a lot of good scorers, so it’s tough.”
The loss ended the Chicago run of four straight wins since firing their head coach.
“That’s a good hockey team. We have to be on our game for all three periods, you can’t have a shift off, and we made some errors with special teams and we turned some pucks over, lost some puck battles,” Chicago’s interim coach Derek King said. “Then we’d come back with the next shift and we won those puck battles and we looked good. We just have to figure out how to do that for three periods.”
Leon Draisaitl scored a shorthanded goal in the third period for the 5-2 final.
The second period featured an object lesson in puck control in the offensive zone. The Oilers held the puck for 4:50 to start the middle frame and cycled all four lines through the stretch without a timeout.
“It was long. We went through different waves of feelings during the shift,” Chicago defenseman Connor Murphy said. “It started off thinking they got east-to-west on us and they were holding us off with one of their bigger lines, and it felt like you saw every forward line they had. Then it went from being super tired to not tired anymore and just getting through it. I think your heart rate peaks and then it doesn’t have anywhere higher to go, it just starts going down and it just gets easier.”
Tot their credit, the Hawks did not yield a goal in the threat.
“That was interesting,” Tippett said. “I applaud our guys. They were doing a lot of things right. They had a guy without a stick out there, and we had some chances, but when it doesn’t go in, all you’re thinking is that they’re going to go down, five seconds into our zone, and the puck is going to bounce out and they’re going to get one.”
Kevin Lankinen made 28 saves in the Chicago loss.
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