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Tag: Darnell Nurse

  • Connor McDavid shines as Oilers pound Kraken 7-2

    Connor McDavid shines as Oilers pound Kraken 7-2

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    SEATTLE — Connor McDavid had a goal and four assists, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Seattle Kraken 7-2 on Friday night.

    Zach Hyman and Klim Kostin each scored twice as Edmonton won for the third time in four games. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had four assists, and Darnell Nurse finished with a goal and an assist.

    McDavid extended his point streak to 17 games, matching his career best. He has 16 goals and 21 assists during the stretch.

    “He’s the best player in the world for a reason,” said Seattle’s Adam Larsson, a former teammate with McDavid in Edmonton. “He’s hard to stop. We can do a lot better job stopping him, but when you give him time and space, he’s going to make you look stupid most of the time.”

    Brandon Tanev and Daniel Sprong scored for Seattle in its third consecutive loss.

    Edmonton grabbed control with four goals in the first half of the first period.

    Hyman put the Oilers ahead to stay with a power-play goal at 2:44. It was his 16th of the season.

    Kostin scored at 3:16, and Nurse slipped another shot past Phillipp Grubauer at 3:55. It was the second-fastest trio of goals to begin a game in the NHL this season, behind only Buffalo at 2:13.

    Grubauer was replaced by Martin Jones, but Edmonton made it 4-0 when Jesse Puljujarvi scored his third goal of the season at 9:58.

    McDavid collected three assists in the first period, and Edmonton’s four goals were the most allowed by the Kraken in the first in franchise history.

    Sprong got Seattle on the board 1:50 into the second. It was Sprong’s 11th of the season.

    But Kostin and Hyman scored again for the Oilers in the middle period. McDavid got his 40th assist of the season on Hyman’s 17th goal.

    McDavid closed it out when he scored his NHL-leading 32nd goal 10:43 into the third.

    “I’m always working on my game,” McDavid said. “I’m just trying to get better and some nights it goes well and some nights it doesn’t. That’s the nature of this league, and I’m just trying to help the team win. That’s what I’m paid to do.”

    Earlier this season, McDavid became just the fifth NHL player in the past 25 years to score 30 goals in 35 or fewer games.

    “What he is doing, I think we should all realize, is quite special,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “It’s the best league in the world, and he is off to a career year. He is doing something that the league hasn’t seen for a very long time. So that is special.”

    Each of Seattle’s past three losses have come against Pacific Division rivals.

    “The competitiveness, and that element, and that willingness to check and push and push through hard situations is really important. We weren’t very good there tonight,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “So that’s where, you know, we have to take a close hard look at ourselves. All of us. We’re all in this thing together.”

    WORTH NOTING

    Edmonton played without center Leon Draisaitl, who was scratched with an unspecified injury. Draisaitl has 21 goals and 36 assists in 36 games this season. … Larsson picked up an assist on Tanev’s goal 7:33 into the second. It was Larsson’s career-best fifth straight game with an assist.

    UP NEXT

    Oilers: Host Winnipeg on Saturday night.

    Kraken: Host the New York Islanders on Sunday.

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    AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Draisaitl, McDavid lead Oilers past slumping Blackhawks 5-4

    Draisaitl, McDavid lead Oilers past slumping Blackhawks 5-4

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    CHICAGO — Leon Draisaitl had two goals and an assist, helping the Edmonton Oilers top the slumping Chicago Blackhawks 5-4 on Wednesday night for their third straight win.

    Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Mattias Janmark each had a goal and an assist as Edmonton improved to 2-0 in Chicago this season. Brett Kulak had two assists, and Stuart Skinner made 21 saves.

    “Just got to keep building and we can’t be satisfied with three wins in a row and the record we have,” Janmark said. “We’ve just got to keep moving forward here.”

    The Blackhawks lost their eighth consecutive game and dropped to 2-10-4 in their last 16 overall. Max Domi had two goals, and MacKenzie Entwistle and Boris Katchouk also scored.

    “It is good to see that we do fight back right to the end,” first-year Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “But we have to be more stingy defensively without taking away from our offense.”

    McDavid got Edmonton some breathing room when he skated past Chicago defenseman Jack Johnson at the blue line and beat Arvid Soderblom on the goaltender’s stick side, making it 3-1 with his team-best 18th goal 1:18 into the third period.

    After Janmark finished a 2-on-1 with Nugent-Hopkins midway through the third, Domi and Entwistle scored 19 seconds apart to get Chicago (6-12-4) back in the game.

    But Edmonton’s two biggest stars went right back to work. McDavid set up Draisaitl’s 15th goal on a one-timer with 4:39 left.

    Chicago made one last push, closing to 5-4 on Domi’s second power-play goal with 1:11 left. But the Blackhawks couldn’t come up with the tying score in the final moments.

    “It was a little scrambled in the end, but we won,” Oilers forward Jesse Puljujarvi said. “That’s the really important thing.”

    Edmonton (13-10-0), which plays again Thursday night at Minnesota, jumped in front with two goals in the second.

    Skating in his 500th NHL game, Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse found Draisaitl at the side of the net for an easy tap-in goal 54 seconds into the period.

    A streaking Nugent-Hopkins made it 2-0 at 9:48 with his 10th goal, converting a nice feed by Puljujarvi from behind the net.

    Edmonton also had a goal overturned in the first because of goaltender interference on Zach Hyman, who scored after he pushed Chicago defenseman Seth Jones into Soderblom. Hyman sent a shot off the inside of the post in the opening period.

    Chicago got one back when Johnson’s long shot went off Katchouk and into the net 14:33 into the second. It was Katchouk’s first point in his 12th game of the season.

    WORTH NOTING

    Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi (hip) and forward Sam Lafferty (back) were scratched because of injuries. … Oilers forward Tyler Benson made his season debut. He had been sidelined by a knee injury.

    UP NEXT

    Oilers: At the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.

    Blackhawks: At the New York Rangers on Saturday night.

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    Follow Jay Cohen at https://twitter.com/jcohenap

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    AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Connor McDavid opens with hat trick, Oilers beat Canucks 5-3

    Connor McDavid opens with hat trick, Oilers beat Canucks 5-3

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    EDMONTON, Alberta — Connor McDavid had three goals and an assist and the Edmonton Oilers overcame an early 3-0 deficit to beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-3 on Wednesday night.

    Leon Draisaitl added a goal and two assists and Darnell Nurse also scored for the Oilers in the opener for both teams. Jack Campbell made 33 saves.

    “It wasn’t according to anyone’s script, for sure,” said Edmonton head coach Jay Woodcroft. “I don’t think we were sharp. I don’t think we were in sync early. We found a way to win the game, that’s a really good sign, but we can be better.”

    Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller and Andrei Kuzmenko — in his NHL debut — scored for the Canucks. Thatcher Demko stopped 20 shots.

    Pettersson and Miller scored in an early 51-second span and Kuzmenko made it 3-0 39 seconds into the second on a power play. He’s the first player in Canucks history to score a power-play goal in his debut.

    “That was pretty disappointing, I thought we came out pretty good in the first and special teams kind of cost us the game,” said Canucks defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. “The power play wasn’t good enough and we couldn’t keep the puck out of our net on the (penalty kill).”

    Edmonton got on the board 4:12 into the second when Draisaitl took a deflected pass at the side of the net and slammed it past Demko on a power play.

    The Oilers pulled within a goal with another power-play goal with 5:59 left in the second on a three-way passing play from Zach Hyman to Draisaitl and then to McDavid.

    “It was just not a good start for our group. It was the first game and maybe there was a little bit of jitters,” McDavid said. “It is not going to be perfect every night. You are not going to have the game you want every night and sometimes you get a win with your ‘B’ or ‘C’ game. It was certainly not our ‘A’ game to start, but we found a way to get our legs going and get ourselves back in it.”

    Edmonton pulled even with 41 seconds left in the period on a 2-on-1 short-handed break as Draisaitl fed it across to Nurse, who beat Demko with a one-timer.

    The Oilers took the lead with 4:59 left in the third period with McDavid orchestrating a give-and-go with Hyman before depositing his own rebound past Demko. It was McDavid’s 700th career point, making him the sixth-fastest player to hit the mark in 488 games.

    McDavid completed the hat trick with 25 seconds left when Evander Kane dropped it back to him for an empty-net power-play goal.

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    More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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