Oilers score 7, ease past Utah Hockey Club to gain in Pacific

EDMONTON -- Zach Hyman had two goals and an assist for the Edmonton Oilers, who won 7-1 against the Utah Hockey Club at Rogers Place on Tuesday.

Connor McDavid, Mattias Ekholm and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each had a goal and two assists for the Oilers (40-24-4), who won their third in a row and pulled within two points of the Vegas Golden Knights for first in the Pacific Division. Calvin Pickard made 29 saves.

Leon Draisaitl had his 18-game point streak, the longest in the NHL this season, end (27 points; 14 goals, 13 assists).

“Well, Leon could have had about five in the second period with the amount of chances he had and the amount of plays he made,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “But just true character, some players score when it doesn’t matter. The game’s out of hand then you score with two minutes left to pad the stats.

“You look at the streak and Leon has done none of that. Almost every single game has been a one-goal game and many nights he’s the only guy on the score sheet.”

Sean Durzi scored for Utah, (30-27-11), which has lost two of three. Karel Vejmelka allowed three goals on 14 shots before being replaced by Jaxson Stauber to start the second period. Stauber made 24 saves.

Utah is four points behind the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

“That’s not us, that’s not who we are. It’s not the performance we wanted, we’re upset,” Durzi said. “This time of year, you can’t have that, but at this time of year you have to be able to move on. We’ll have to regroup, and we have to find that mentality of moving on and putting this one in the past.

“You just can’t give up that much. ‘Vej’ stood on his head, ‘Staub’ stood on his head. They had a lot on the rush. They’re really good on the rush all year and we knew that and didn’t prevent it.”

Nugent-Hopkins put Edmonton ahead 1-0 at 12:28 of the first period, taking the puck from Mikhail Sergachev along the boards in the neutral zone for a short-handed breakaway and roofing a backhand.

“We put a lot on net, which we’ve talked about a lot, getting guys going there and getting a lot of rebounds from that,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We got rewarded with some special teams, but I thought it started with our 5-on-5 play.”

Hyman, who missed the 3-1 win at the New York Rangers on Sunday with an undisclosed injury, made it 2-0 at 15:14, taking a cross-crease pass from Nugent-Hopkins and redirecting it backdoor.

With four seconds remaining in the period, McDavid pushed the lead to 3-0, skating past two Utah players and deking Vejmelka glove side. McDavid has 18 points (four goals, 14 assists) during a 12-game point streak.

Hyman made it 4-0 with his second of the game at 7:41 of the second period. His skate was in the right spot to deflect in a sharp-angled wrist shot by Ekholm, who had missed the previous six games with an illness and undisclosed injury.

“It was a full team effort right from the start,” Hyman said. “[Pickard] was amazing, our special teams were great. It was a full team effort.”

Vasily Podkolzin extended the lead to 5-0 at 9:53, taking a back pass from Nugent-Hopkins and scoring with a wrist shot from the right dot past Stauber’s glove.

Durzi cut the lead to 5–1 at 16:26 with a slap shot from the point that beat Pickard glove side.

“It’s everybody, the fight, the pushback, what we’re known for, the resilience and being engaged and to be connected, there was none of that,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “It’s everybody and it starts with the coach. It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Ekholm made it 6-1 just 33 seconds into the third period, scoring with a wrist shot past Stauber’s glove from the slot after Hyman stole the puck from Dylan Guenther.

Viktor Arvidsson pushed the lead to 7-1 at 2:36, taking the puck from Clayton Keller right in front of Utah's crease and sliding a backhand through Stauber’s legs.

“It was just a full team game. All four lines were rolling, the penalty kill stepped up and special teams were good all around,” Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “It was a good win for us. ‘Picks’ made some big saves for us.

“For our group, we understand that if we want to have the type of season we want to have, it is going to come down to defending. It’s got to continue. There have been lots of good steps defensively. The main thing is [keeping] the [shots] outside and our goaltenders have been awesome for us the last three.”

NOTES: McDavid got all three of his points in the first period. It was his 180th multipoint period, trailing only Wayne Gretzky (395) and Jari Kurri (183) for most in Oilers history. ... McDavid had his first three-point game against Utah. He has now done so against 32 different franchises, which is the most in NHL history. The only players to do it against at least 30 different franchises are Patrick Kane (31), Alex Ovechkin (31), Nathan MacKinnon (31), Nikita Kucherov (31), Draisaitl (30) and Evgeni Malkin (30). … It was the fourth time Edmonton has had four players with three points each, and the first since March 18, 2023.