Oilers thump Arizona, 6-1

In Edmonton, the Oilers shut down the Arizona Coyotes on Monday night in a 6-1 win.

Ryan McLeod hit for a double and added an assist in the win.

“I was feeling good,” McLeod said. “As a group, we were pretty motivated after that last game (a 9-5 loss at the Calgary Flames on Saturday). We just wanted to come hard off the start and got one early and started rolling.”

Mikko Koskinen made 31 saves in the Oilers win.

“It was really important that we learned a lesson from our last game,” Koskinen said. “We really wanted to bounce back. It was an embarrassing game on Saturday, and I think we got exactly the result that we needed. Not just the result, but the way that we played. We didn’t give any odd-man rushes, we played well. That was the most important thing, with the two points.”

Clayton Keller was the lone striker for the Coyotes.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl each added single markers for Edmonton.

“It was a pretty businesslike mindset by our team heading into the game; we did what we had to do in order to walk away with the two points,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “Nobody was happy with the result the other night. We had a day off to think about it, stew about it, and this morning we had some hard meetings. Players were challenged and they responded.”

The Oilers improved to 37-25-5.

“It’s a tough schedule, we know that and we’re pretty banged up right now,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “Mentally, we were a little bit tired and a little bit off. We had a number of turnovers tonight and our execution was not sharp and making plays was tough. We had a bad game.”

Warren Foegele and Zach Hyman also scored for Edmonton.

Karel Vejmelka got the start for Arizona and yielded five goals and made 30 saves before getting the hook in the second intermission.

Josef Korenar made six saves in the third period.

“It’s always tough doing it back to back after travel, but that’s no excuse; we’ve done it many times this season,” Arizona’s Dysin Mayo said. “I think we just didn’t have the intensity to come out like we have this season. We found our way back in the game and then we let in a couple more and we really couldn’t recover after that.”