CAPITAL THRASHING
Oilers down Senators 6-2
After being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on Wednesday, the Edmonton Oilers shared the misery Thursday by taking the Ottawa Senators down with them.
It is no consolation for missing the post-season themselves, but it felt pretty good.
In fact, 13 goals in the last two games feels pretty great.
Connor McDavid made it all possible in Ottawa, doing what Connor McDavid does best — being better than everyone else in the rink.
He scored two goals and had two assists, most of it coming in the third period as he turned a 2-1 nail-biter into a 6-2 rout.
This, on the heels of their 7-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes, improved the Oilers to 6-2-1 in their last nine.
Edmonton started slowly and finished fast in this one, taking a 1-0 lead into the first intermission when Drake Caggiula scored at 8:23 of the first period.
McDavid, left all alone in the slot for some reason, made it 2-0 with his 91st point of the season, with Ty Rattie picking up his fourth point in four games with the second assist.
It was still anyone’s game. With a 2-0 lead and five minutes left in the second period the Oilers had back-to-back power plays, but couldn’t score on to put it away. It looked like that might haunt them when Matt Duchene cut the lead to 2-1 early in the third.
It didn’t.
In fact, that triggered the beginning of the end for the Senators.
Just eight seconds later it was 3-1 again after McDavid set up Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on a twoon-one. Then 38 seconds after that he set up Rattie for his fifth point in four games since being called up to play on Edmonton’s first line.
And 35 seconds after that Caggiula’s second of the night, on the power play, no less, buried them for good.
McDavid’s four points give him 94 on the year and leaves him one behind Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov for the NHL scoring race.