McDavid gets hot, leads Oilers over Jets

Connor McDavid scored a goal and added two assists to lead the Edmonton Oilers to their fifth straight victory under interim coach Jay Woodcroft, 4-2 over the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.

McDavid’s three points give him 71 — 26 goals and 45 assists — for the season, two ahead of Oilers teammate Leon Draisaitl, who had an assist against the Jets, for the NHL lead.

Zach Hyman, Kailer Yamamoto and Darnell Nurse also had goals for Edmonton, and Tyson Barrie had two assists.

“(McDavid) had it going on tonight, and he has it going on most nights,” Woodcroft said. “But in the end, it was a close game and some of the plays that our top players made were the difference in the game.”

Mikko Koskinen stopped 22 shots for Edmonton in his first game since going into the COVID-19 protocol after the all-star break.

“What a performance he put in,” Woodcroft said. “I thought he instilled a lot of confidence in our team.”

Winnipeg scored a pair of third-period goals, with one coming short-handed from Adam Lowry and Kyle Connor adding another on a power play. Connor Hellebuyck made 36 saves for the Jets, who are 5-3-1 after a six-game winless streak.

Winnipeg had a five-onthree man advantage for 90 seconds in the first period, but didn’t get a shot on goal after a lot of passing back and forth.

Edmonton then got its first power play of the game and Hyman tipped in Barrie’s point shot through traffic at the 12:17 mark, 20 seconds into the advantage.

“We did have some seams open up actually and they did a good job of getting sticks on a couple of plays, where if it gets through you’re getting a Grade A chance,” Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey said.

AVALANCHE 5, SABRES 3 »

Mikko Rantanen scored a goal and assisted on Alex Newhook’s tiebreaking score in the third period, and NHL-leading Colorado extended its season-best road win streak to seven.

Nathan MacKinnon also had a goal and an assist, J.T. Compher and Nazem Kadri scored the other goals for the Avalanche, who are 242-2 overall since Dec. 6. BRUINS 3, SENATORS 2, OT » David Pastrnak scored on a one-timer off a cross-ice feed from from Taylor Hall at 2:42 of overtime to lead Boston to victory.

BLUES 6, MAPLE LEAFS 3

Brandon Saad, Ryan O’Reilly and Pavel Buchnevich each scored in a threegoal third period as St. Louis topped Toronto .