Connor McDavid had five assists and Leon Draisaitl three goals as the Edmonton Oilers kept rolling into the holiday hiatus with a 5-1 victory over their rival Calgary Flames on Tuesday.
Zach Hyman had a goal and two assists, Evan Bouchard a pair of helpers and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also scored for the Oilers (19-13-6), who have won four of their last five and have gone 8-2-1 in their last 11 games.
Mackenzie Weegar replied for the Flames (15-18-4) who had a modest two-game winning streak halted.
Connor Ingram, making his second consecutive NHL start for the first time since early February when he played for Utah, made 19 stops to improve to 2-0-0 with the Oilers.
Dustin Wolf made 34 saves in the loss for Calgary.
Edmonton is now 16-1-3 when scoring first this season and has gone 4-0 in their new alternate jerseys, outscoring opponents by a 26-10 margin.
TAKEAWAYS
Flames: Veteran forward Mikael Backlund has started to heat up with six points in his last three games after just three in his previous 10.
Oilers: Edmonton’s terrific twosome continued to shine in December. McDavid extended his points streak to 11 games, with 12 goals, 19 assists across the stretch. It was the 45th game in which he’s put up four or more points, tying Jari Kurri for second in Oilers history. Draisaitl has points in 10 of his last 11 games, with five goals and 19 assists. His three goals put him past Glenn Anderson (417) for third most in Oilers history, behind Gretzky and Kurri.
KEY MOMENT
Edmonton took a 5-1 lead on a power play with 14:22 left in the third as Draisaitl potted his third goal of the game and 20th of the season. It was his ninth career regular-season hat trick. Draisaitl came into the game with an eight-game goalless drought, his longest regular-season stretch without a goal since February and March 2021.
KEY STAT
Edmonton came in with the league’s best power play (33.3 per cent) and had scored on 42.4 per cent of its opportunities over the last 10 games, with 14 goals on 33 chances. The Oilers were three-for-six with the man advantage on Tuesday.
UP NEXT
The two Alberta rivals face each other again in a rematch after the holiday break, with the game shifting to Calgary on Saturday.
