While goals have not always been easy to come by this season, the Edmonton Oilers’ offence erupted on Saturday and filled their opponents’ net seven times.
Now the hockey club hopes to keep its offensive swagger intact as it prepares to face the New York Islanders at Rogers Place on Tuesday night.
“It was a step in the right direction, for sure,” captain Connor McDavid said of the Oilers’ 7-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday. “Not an easy building to win in, a team that obviously we’ve got lots of history with and this is a great win.
“Hopefully it’s something that we can build on.”
The Oilers’ offensive woes have been hampered by the club’s lack of success on the power play. Edmonton’s power play came into Saturday’s game running with a 14.3 per cent success rate and ranked 26th in the NHL. In the last two seasons, the Oilers have had the league’s most effective power play, operating at 29.5 per cent.
Six Oilers had a multi-point effort in the weekend road game.
As the Oilers get ready to begin a two-game homestand on Tuesday, the club hopes to improve on its scoring rate at Rogers Place, where this season has seen Edmonton score two or fewer goals in six of eight home games.
Speaking to reporters after the Oilers’ morning skate on Tuesday, head coach Kris Knoblauch said he was pleased by much of what he saw from his players in Saturday’s game against the Canucks.
“I thought there was a lot of good things that we did,” he said. “Any time you start scoring goals, I think it just allows guys to relax, feel better about their game and just be able to play.
“We know our special teams have to be better … (but) our power play looked really good in Vancouver. It looked sharp. They were winning battles, had some excellent scoring chances.”
The Oilers currently have a 2-5-1 record at home and a 7-7-1 record overall. The Islanders are 4-3-1 on the road this season and 6-6-3 overall.
“We’re right around .500,” Oilers forward Mattias Janmark said over the weekend.
“We don’t think we’re a .500 team, so we’ve got to show it to everyone and show it to ourselves that we’re not and that goes by winning some games.”
McDavid closing in on 1,000 points
McDavid collected three points on Saturday night, boosting his career total to 995. He is now just five points away from becoming the NHL’s 99th player to reach 1,000 career points.
If McDavid can reach the 1,000-point mark before he has played 682 games, he will become the fourth-fastest player in NHL history to accomplish the feat. So far, McDavid has played in 657 games.
Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl was asked on Tuesday about his teammate approaching the impressive milestone.
“Getting to 1,000 points at his age and how few games he has played, it’s a little mind-blowing at times,” Draisaitl told reporters. “(I am) very fortunate to be able to learn from him and watch him do his thing.
“In my eyes, there’s never been a player like him, especially in the modern era.”
Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse noted McDavid has “worked so hard to get to this point.”
“I know he has so much more he wants to accomplish,” Nurse said.
Draisaitl said there is “a lot of work that goes into it for him that a lot of people don’t see,” adding that he is inspired by McDavid’s passion for hockey, something he shares.
“I don’t think there’s a player that can create out of nothing like him ever in hockey.”
— With files from The Canadian Press’s Gemma Karstens-Smith