EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Connor McDavid scored two goals and added an assist to at least temporarily take the lead in points this season as the Edmonton Oilers dumped the Anaheim Ducks 6-1 on Saturday.
“It’s nice, I guess. (It’s a) position I’ve been in many times before,” he said. “We’re playing for things bigger than that — making sure our game is in order, and we’re still playing for positioning. There are 10 games left. You never know what could happen.”
Mattias Ekholm had a goal and two assists for the Oilers, who have won three in a row.
“I thought we came out flying in the first, played really well,” Ekholm said. “When the game gets out of hand early, obviously it’s easier to manage them. Their team is usually one that will stick around if they can, but I thought we did a good job of managing in the first and we kind of did a good job of putting them away early and then just went from there.”
Adam Henrique, Warren Foegele and Zach Hyman also scored for Edmonton. Calvin Pickard made 22 saves in just missing his second shutout of the season.
Alex Killorn scored late for the Ducks, who have lost four straight and gone 1-9-1 in their last 11 outings, and goalie John Gibson made 31 saves.
“We started out a little slow, measured and they got a couple quality opportunities and they put them in the net,” said Ducks coach Greg Cronin. “It’s really hard to start out a game on the road down 3-zip. We dug a hole and we had some chances to get back in. Frankie (Vatrano) had a wide-open net, hit a pipe, but we just weren’t good enough tonight.”
Edmonton got off to a solid start, taking just 3:47 to get the game’s first goal.
Leon Draisaitl dropped a pass back to Henrique, who scored on his own rebound for his 22nd goal of the season and fourth as an Oiler. Draisaitl extended his point streak to seven games on the play.
McDavid also stretched his point streak to seven games with 5:45 left in the opening period. He snagged a loose puck and used his speed to get around Ducks forward Bo Groulx before freezing goalie John Gibson with a quick move for his 28th goal.
The Oilers went up 3-0 a couple of minutes later as Ekholm sent a blast from the point through traffic for his eighth of the campaign.
McDavid picked up his third point of the game seven minutes into the third period. Entering Saturday night’s games, McDavid was one point ahead of Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and two ahead of Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon.
The Ducks ended Pickard’s shutout bid with 4:18 to play in the third period as Killorn notched his 15th goal.
UP NEXT
Ducks: Play the fourth game of a five-game road trip in Vancouver against the Canucks on Sunday.
Oilers: Start a two-game trip against the St. Louis Blues on Monday.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
The Associated Press
