The Florida Panthers handed the Edmonton Oilers their third straight loss, winning 4-1 on home ice Thursday night.
“We just chased the puck all night,” head coach Todd McLellan said after the game. “You look at the faceoffs alone — we couldn’t win anything. We chased and chased and chased, and they got better as the night went on and we didn’t.”
LISTEN BELOW: Todd McLellan
The Oilers had two great chances in the first five minutes, but Roberto Luongo made glove saves on Leon Draisaitl and Ty Rattie.
The Panthers completely took over the play in the second period and earned goals less than a minute and a half apart, from Evgenii Dadonov and Nick Bjugstad.
Rattie had the Oilers’ best chance of the period on the power play, but Luongo shot out his pad to make another sparkling save.
The Panthers outshot the Oilers 19-4 in the second.
Leon Draisaitl finally broke through off a set-up from Connor McDavid 23 seconds into the third. However, the Panthers came back less four minutes later with a power play from Jonathan Huberdeau.
Colton Sceviour added an empty net goal in the last minute.
Mike Hoffman had two assists for Panthers to extent his point streak to 10 games.
“Obviously it’s frustrating, but we’re going to regroup here,” McDavid said. “We had a good start (to the season) and it allows us to have a little slide like this and we’re going to battle out of it.”
LISTEN BELOW: Connor McDavid
Before Thursday’s match, the Oilers had won nine straight road games against Florida.
The Oilers, 8-7-1, will host Colorado on Sunday.
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