In Edmonton, Connor McDavid made sure there was no doubt of the effort or the outcome on Friday night in the match between the Oilers and the Ottawa Senators.
McDavid scored 10 seconds into the game and added two assists for 51 points on the season in a 6-2 thrashing of the Sens.
“It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, it’s not easy to beat them three times, so credit to our group,” McDavid said. “I think it’s good for everyone to get involved offensively.”
Mike Smith made 23 saves in the win.
Thomas Chabot and Brady Tkachuk made the final a little more respectable with the Senators’ goals.
“I don’t see a 6-2 game tonight, I thought some guys really played hard,” Senators head coach D.J. Smith said. “We can’t take that many penalties [four] against this power play, and they got some timely, lucky goals. But there were some guys that really worked hard I thought for being short-staffed up front with the last minute scratch of (Artem Anisimov). I thought some guys played hard, we just didn’t manage the puck the way we have tTkachuk’s goal came off the power play.
“I thought we played, for the most part, a pretty good game,” Tkachuk said. “There were stretches where the momentum shifts and stuff like that, but it definitely wasn’t a 6-2 game, and for us, we have to focus more on our discipline here.”
Leon Draisaitl, Tyson Barrie and Tyler Ennis also scored for the Oilers.
“We talked a lot of how we want to play as a group and try to be consistent with it,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said. “I thought tonight’s game got a little scrambly at times, but I like the way we hung in there and found a way to win. We have to keep building our group, our players are really committed to getting better every day and every game is new challenge for us, and when you have a set of three games there are challenges within that, that you have to overcome, and I thought our guys did a good job of that.”
Darnell Nurse had a goal to put the Oilers ahead 3-2. Edmonton scored three more after that for good measure.
Gaetan Haas scored late in the third for the final goal for the Oilers.
“We didn’t underestimate them, we wanted to play a solid game, and I think those were three pretty good games against them,” Haas said. “We had solid [defense] in the [defensive] zone and tried to get the puck up as fast as possible to the offensive zone, and that’s how we won.”
Joey Daccord made 31 saves in the loss.
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