EDMONTON — A .500 road trip, a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins goal, and a much better looking game by the Edmonton Oilers as they bounced back Tuesday with a dominant 5-2 win over the Ottawa Senators.
And the goalie?
“It always looks like you defended a lot better when your goalie makes huge saves,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “(Stu) Skinner was really the difference. He played an outstanding game tonight.”
Was he really “the difference?”
Well, Skinner — 4-1-1 in his last six starts — certainly outplayed Linus Ullmark at the other end, stopping 27 Senators shots while Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard each had three-point nights in Kanata. Nugent-Hopkins directed the fifth goal home, just his second goal and a welcome one, in a season where his shooting percentage is a subterranean five per cent.
After a 3-0 loss in Montreal the evening before, Knoblauch mixed up his lines. Vasily Podkolzin, who found himself on the left wing on a line with Nos. 29 and 97, had two assists — but still couldn’t find that elusive first goal of the season despite two shots on goal and a plus-2 night.
“Honestly, the numbers aren’t showing it,” said McDavid. “I know he hasn’t scored, and lots has been made of that. But he works so hard, keeps so many pucks alive, makes so many great little subtle plays that the media doesn’t love to write about, but are so important to being a good linemate.”
After a debacle in Montreal, the Oilers vowed to play a more straight-ahead game — less perimeter play, more shots and taking the puck to the net — and they delivered on their promise. Bouchard opened the scoring with a lovely end-to-end solo rush, walking Sens D-man Thomas Chabot and beating Ullmark for a beauty.
The rest of the night was more workmanlike, as the Oilers never let the game get out of their control.
“We kept things simple,” said Bouchard, who has 5-8-13 in the first quarter of the season. “That was the gameplan going into it. It definitely gives us confidence on a back-to-back, winning in that fashion.”
“I thought it was a resilient effort. Not easy,” said McDavid. “Lots of travel, back-to-back. They were rested. We were a little bit behind the eight ball, but just found a way to get it done tonight.”
The Oilers go to 8-1-1 in their past 10 games in Kanata. They move to within two points of first place Vegas in the Pacific.
Sami’s Boy
Kasperi Kapanen became an Edmonton Oiler on Tuesday when Oilers GM Stan Bowman claimed him off the waiver wire from St. Louis. Edmonton is the fourth NHL organization for Kapanen, 28, who has been twice traded and twice claimed on waivers.
His calling cards are foot speed and an ability to tease, playing 10 good games but seldom matching that in the following 10.
How do the Oilers think they’ll get a player of value when the last two teams gave him away for free?
“That’s a fair question,” said Bowman, over the phone from Ottawa. “We did our homework, and he’ll fit in in our dressing room, be a good teammate. Sometimes as guys get older they mature.
“We’ll know in the coming weeks, but in the conversation I had with him he is very motivated coming here. He is excited and very determined to make this a success.”
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Kapanen adds some key foot speed to Edmonton’s forward lines, depleted in that category with the loss of Warren Foegele, Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway over the summer. “He’s fast enough to play Top 6, and experienced enough (470 NHL games) to play Bottom 6 minutes,” Bowman said.
“No question, we were faster last year,” he continued. “But it’s funny: I was talking with the GM of a team we beat recently, and he said we were the fastest team they’ve played. It was funny to have another GM tell me that.
“We might be as fast in a race with a stopwatch, but we can play fast.”
OIL SPILLS — Edmonton’s penalty kill was perfect on two attempts again tonight. They’ve killed 12 straight, flawless for five games now … Bouchard’s game-opening goal was career goal No. 46, tying him with Steve Smith for fifth all-time among Oilers defencemen … McDavid and Draisaitl have had at least three points in the same game on 43 occasions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Oilers are 43-0 in those games. … Zach Hyman played his 600th career game, but didn’t come out for the third period with an undisclosed injury. Knoblauch had no update post-game … McDavid’s 308th career multi-point game passes Norm Ullman for the 53rd most in NHL history … Brett Kulak led the Oilers with 23:05 of ice time.
