Oilers’ Penalty Kill Dominates In Connor McDavid’s Return

Not every win gets to be about offence.

The Oilers learned that on Monday night, riding a dominant penalty kill and clutch scoring to a 4-2 win over the Seattle Kraken in Connor McDavid’s first game back from suspension.

Seattle got things started early, opening the scoring less than four minutes into the first period courtesy of Eeli Tolvanen. The Oilers challenged it for goaltender interference as Seattle’s John Hayden took a big chunk out of Calvin Pickard, but the goal stood and the Kraken went up 1-0.

The Oilers evened things up later in the period on a deflected goal from Mattias Janmark (his first against a goalie this season), but Vince Dunn retook the lead for Seattle just minutes later to make it a 2-1 game going into the second period.

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That was when things changed for the Oilers. They started the period by killing off a 5-on-3 that began at the end of the first — already their third successful penalty kill of the game — before McDavid followed it up with his 21st goal of the season to tie the game in his return to the lineup.

Though it remained a tight game — final shot total read 31-28 Oilers — they never looked back from there. Just after Zach Hyman rang a glorious chance off the cross-bar, a cherry-picking Corey Perry scored one of the easier goals of his career on the breakaway.

Seriously, this is about as open as a player can be in the NHL. Full credit to Darnell Nurse for a perfect stretch pass, too:

From there, the Oilers killed one more penalty and Mattias Ekholm added a long-bomb empty-netter to defeat the Kraken 4-2, their eighth consecutive win over their Pacific Division rivals.

With Monday’s win, the Oilers are now back in sole possession of first place in the Pacific Division, one point ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights. Even better: they’re third in the league, just four points behind Winnipeg and Washington with 32 games left to play.

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The Oilers will be back in action on Thursday night when the Detroit Red Wings come to town for the only time this season.

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