Russell shines
Former Tiger lifts Oilers over Panthers
SUNRISE, Fla. The last time Edmonton lost a road game at Florida, Connor McDavid was 5 years old.
He’s 20 now. And he wasn’t about to let the streak end just yet.
McDavid helped set up Kris Russell’s winner with 7:58 left, and the Oilers beat Florida 4-3 on Wednesday to snap the Panthers’ five-game winning streak.
“Happy that the leaders took care of a few things,” said Oilers coach Todd McLellan, who lauded his team for a bounce back after a lacklustre effort Tuesday in a loss to Tampa Bay. “We got tremendous games from guys that had a lot of trouble last night.”
McDavid carried the puck into the Florida zone on the right wing before sending it over to Leon Draisaitl. He tapped it to Russell, who came down the left side almost unnoticed for what became his first goal since Feb. 11, 2016 — when he played for Calgary.
Fellow defenceman Oscar Klefbom also scored for Edmonton, as did Zack Kassian and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The Oilers played half the game without defenceman Andrej Sekera, who suffered what McLellan called a softtissue or muscle injury and will be evaluated again Thursday. “They’re playing real well right now,” Russell said of the Panthers. “And I thought we answered well.”
Aleksander Barkov, Colton Sceviour and Jonathan Marchessault scored for Florida. Keith Yandle had two assists for the Panthers, giving him 400 points for his career.
“Lot of good stuff,” Panthers coach Tom Rowe said. “Last 11 games, we’re 8-2-1. ... We’re going to look at the positives. I thought there was a lot of good stuff. It was a good game. We just didn’t get the bounces.”
Cam Talbot stopped 31 shots for the Oilers, who have won their last eight games at Florida — last losing on the Panthers’ ice in 2002. James Reimer made 31 saves for the Panthers, who just completed a 5-0-0 road trip.
The Panthers trailed for 93 seconds on their five-game road trip. They trailed for the final 14:42 of the first period alone in this one, after Klefbom’s unassisted goal opened the scoring.
From there, the trend of the night emerged: Edmonton would lead, and Florida would come back. It worked three times — but not a fourth.
“Got to give them credit,” Yandle said. “They played well. Their goalie played well. Talbot played well. Just one of those things where a mistake here and there kind of cost us.”