Connor McDavid had three goals and three assists as the Edmonton Oilers pummeled the Colorado Avalanche 6-2 Thursday night at Rogers Place.
It was the first six-point game of McDavid’s career and his second hat trick in the last three games.
“We needed that,” McDavid said after the game. “Obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted in San Jose.
“We needed a big bounce back on this two-game homestand. We got the first one, now we need to go get the seconds one.”
Andre Burakovsky scored just 1:20 into the game to give the Avs the lead, but the Oilers took over after that.
Edmonton forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins beat Colorado netminder Adam Werner over the blocker. McDavid fired in a shot on the power play. Only 28 seconds later, Oilers forward Zack Kassian converted a goal-mouth pass from Draisaitl. McDavid sniped another on the power play to make it 4-1 Oilers after one.
“We talked about it before the game, that we’ve got to be hard on those top-six (forwards) on the other team, and I think we showed too much respect or whatever,” Burakovsky said.
“They get four in the first period — that’s not acceptable at all and I don’t think we followed what we were supposed to do.”
“Their best players had a night tonight, and we didn’t. I just didn’t think we were very good,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said.
“Not tight enough with our checking, and just didn’t seem to have the drive that we needed to win this one.”
The Oilers captain completed the hat trick with another power-play marker 8:32 into the second. That ended the night for Werner, who was making his first career start, allowing five goals on 18 shots.
Burakovsky struck back for Colorado, but Nugent-Hopkins came back on the man advantage for a 6-2 Oilers lead after two periods.
The third period was scoreless.
Draisaitl had five assists for the first regular season five-point game of his career.
“There’s nights when you don’t have it and there’s nights when you just have it. That’s any player in the NHL,” Draisaitl said.
McDavid’s three power-play goals tied a team record. Glenn Anderson did it twice while Taylor Hall did it once.
The Oilers were 4 for 6 on the power play and 5 for 5 on the penalty kill.
“It was a s*** game,” Avalanche defenceman Ian Cole said.
He was asked what made the Oilers’ power play so effective in Thursday night’s game and said it was “us not being good enough.”
“That’s what happened,” Cole said.
The Oilers (13-6-2) will host Dallas at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
–With files from 630 CHED’s Brenden Escott and Scott Johnston
Comments