The Carolina Hurricanes pounced on a poor performance by the Edmonton Oilers Sunday night and cruised to a 7-4 win at Rogers Place.
LISTEN BELOW: Milan Lucic
“We’re well prepared and everyone’s excited about the game and we’re going into the game with the right mindset and then something happens and it just goes downhill from there,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said.
The Hurricanes dominated a sleepy Oilers team out of the gate, getting the first 11 shots of the game. Nino Niederreiter scored on Carolina’s first shot 28 seconds in. Andrei Svenchnikov beat Cam Talbot with a tip, then Niederreiter tallied again at 11:02.
“We held the fort for a little while but our five-on-five play isn’t good enough,” Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock said. “When you’re not good five-on-five, you can live for a little while on your power play or you can live on one or two people coming through for you, but we’re not playing well five-on-five and it hurts us a lot.”
Talbot was pulled after allowing three goals on 15 shots. The Oilers got one back when Brandon Manning potted his first with the team with 50.5 seconds to go in the frame.
“Cam was a mercy pull today,” Hitchcock said.
The onslaught continued in the second. Brock McGinn and Lucas Wallmark scored in the first five minutes. Jordan Martinook added another late in the session shortly before Leon Draisaitl registered his 100th career goal for the Oilers.
Zack Kassian scored on a deflection 14 seconds into the third. Draisaitl added a power play goal with 12:53 left. Wallmark scored an empty netter with 2:22 to go to round out the scoring.
“It’s not like we play them, or him, ten times a year,” Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said of the Oilers and McDavid. “It’s nice that we only have to see him once or twice. But they had good games tonight.”
Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Adam Larsson all finished minus-three on the evening.
“I’m playing so bad right now,” Larsson said. “I don’t know what it is but I need it to stop.”
“We’re not playing with the hockey sense that I think we have,” Hitchcock said. “To me, this is the time of year where, if you can kill penalties and you can play five-on-five, you can win every game.”
“We’re not killing penalties and we’re not playing five-on-five and it costs us too many nights,” Hitchcock added.
LISTEN BELOW: Ken Hitchcock
The Oilers, 23-23-3, will host Detroit on Tuesday.
with files from Brenden Escott and Kyle Morris