Zach Hyman scored his 50th goal of the season, but his Edmonton Oilers were beaten 5-3 by the Ottawa Senators on Sunday.
“This is a milestone that I don’t think anybody thought I would ever get to when I started my career, and I got to it, which is pretty crazy honestly,” Hyman said after the game.
“I had a lot of help — (I) play with a couple of special players, especially Connor (McDavid). I wouldn’t be in this position without him, and I thought it was fitting that he was able to set me up for it.”
The Oilers took the lead less than four minutes into the game when Mattias Ekholm set up Adam Henrique for his 20th of the season.
Ottawa replied on the power play less than two minutes later with Drake Batherson using a perfect saucer pass to set up Jacob Chychrun.
The Oilers scored two power-play goals in the first four minutes of the second period. Leon Draisaitl took a feed from Evan Bouchard and ripped home a sharp angle one-timer.
Then Hyman scored his historic goal by camping out at the side of the net and tapping in a pass from McDavid.
Tim Stutzle popped a shot past Calvin Pickard’s blocker to cut the Oilers’ lead to 3-2 just over a minute later.
Batherson tied it on a power play late in the second.
The Senators went on the power play with 3:12 to go when Ekholm was called for holding Ottawa’s Mathieu Joseph. It took the Senators only nine seconds to score on the man advantage with Chychrun slamming in his second of the night.
Parker Kelly added an empty-netter.
The Oilers outshot the Sens 36-16. Ottawa netminder Joonas Korpisalo earned the win with 33 saves.
“Disappointing that we didn’t come home with the two points,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said.
“I thought we had a lot of good opportunities, especially when we’re up 3-1 and things are looking good. Then we make a mistake and it’s 3-2 and they’re back in it when they looked like they were out of it. And then special teams, obviously that was a big part of this game.”
The Sens were 3 for 4 on the power play while the Oilers were 2 for 3.
Bouchard had three assists.
The Oilers (42-23-4) will visit the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday. You can listen to the game live on 630 CHED, beginning with The Faceoff Show at 4:30 p.m. The actual game starts at 6 p.m.