Oilers end road swing on solid note
Seven-goal eruption in win over Jackets
COLUMBUS, OHIO Not many in the hockey world would have predicted that in games against two of the best goaltenders in the world, Carey Price and Sergei Bobrovsky, the Edmonton Oilers would erupt for 13 goals and two wins.
But then again, not many in the hockey world would dare predict anything about this team anymore.
The surprises keep coming, though.
Four days after beating the Canadiens 6-2 in Montreal, the Oilers wrapped up their road trip with a 7-2 thrashing of the Metropolitan-leading Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Oilers finish the road trip 2-1, with the only loss coming in a game where they outshot the Toronto Maple Leafs 41-23.
It was all Edmonton for the most part in this one, as the Oilers scored twice on the power play, once short-handed, got four points from Connor McDavid, a solid night in net from Laurent Brossoit and goals from seven different players.
The Oilers turned in a good road period, taking a 1-0 lead on Zack Kassian’s third goal and fifth point in seven games. It is only the 12th time in 31 games that the Oilers scored first, earning an 8-3-1 record in that span.
They ran away with it in the second, thanks to their much-maligned special-teams units. The Oilers scored two power-play goals on their first three attempts against the No.3 penalty-killing team in the league (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins at 6:27 and Milan Lucic at 19:10).
Matt Benning capped a twopoint night with his fourth of the season and then Mark Letestu fired the kill shot with less than one second left in the second period. Columbus went on the power play with a faceoff in Edmonton’s end with nine seconds left on the clock, but Letestu intercepted a pass and scored with 0.3 seconds left.
The Blue Jackets rallied in the third, scoring two goals in the first nine minutes to bring back memories of Edmonton’s fivegoal collapse in Calgary, but Jesse Puljujarvi stopped the bleeding at 13:44 and McDavid added a goal to go with his three assists.