Leon Draisaitl had a goal and an assist as the Edmonton Oilers won their third game in a row, hanging on to get past the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on Tuesday.
“I thought it was a good solid game with the lead,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “I think it takes a lot of maturity, a lot of composure, and a lot of the things we saw last year.”
Connor McDavid also scored for the Oilers (16-10-2) who have won six of their last seven.
Jake Guentzel replied with the lone goal for the Lightning (14-10-2) who had a modest two-game winning streak halted.
Stuart Skinner made 20 stops in net for the Oilers, while Andrei Vasilevskiy recorded 23 saves between the pipes for the Lightning.
TAKEAWAYS
Lightning: Brayden Point has been picking up the points like crazy of late. His second-period assist gave him nine points in his last three games, after back-to-back four-point nights coming into the contest. Point has 10 goals and 17 points in his last 10 games.
Oilers: McDavid continues to rebound from what was a slow start to the season from his standards with only 10 points in his first 11 games. Since then, he has recorded 28 points in his last 14 games. It was the 57th time in his career he has scored a game’s opening goal.
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KEY MOMENT
Edmonton took a 2-1 lead with eight minutes to play in the second period as Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made a big stop on Draisaitl on a breakaway and attempted to sweep the rebound to safety, only to have it hit defender Victor Hedman and carom into the net. The goal went into the books as Draisaitl’s league-leading 20th of the season, the ninth consecutive year he has hit the mark, tying him with Wayne Gretzky for third most in franchise history. Mark Messier and Jari Kurri both had 10.
“Originally I thought it was maybe Podsy (Podkolzin) or Kaspy (Kapanen),” Draisaitl said in reference to the game winning goal. “That one is not pretty but I’ll take it.”
KEY STAT
The game featured the last eight Art Ross trophy winners in Edmonton’s McDavid and Draisaitl and Tampa’s Kucherov. McDavid won in 2017, 18, 21, 22 and 23, Draisaitl in 2020 and Kucherov in 2019 and 2024. The last time a game featured the last eight Art Ross winners on the ice at the same time was on Jan. 25, 1997, and featured Wayne Gretzky (Rangers) taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins with Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. That trio actually combined to win a staggering 21 consecutive Art Ross awards between 1981 and 2001.
UP NEXT
Lightning: Visit the Calgary Flames on Thursday.
Oilers: Visit the Minnesota Wild on Thursday.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
