Edmonton Oilers strike twice on power play to beat Canucks

Mikko Koskinen made 29 saves as the Edmonton Oilers downed the Vancouver Canucks 2-1 Saturday night.

The Oilers had the better of the play in the first period. The second play unit cashed in when Warren Foegele jammed a rebound past Thatcher Demko for his second of the season.

“We all feed off each other. I thought it was a good game for our line and it’s been early this season but we got a lot more games to go and just got to play at that pace.” Foegele said.

The Canucks responded in the second but missed several good scoring chances. The Oilers went to the power play late in the frame. Leon Draisaitl banged in a pass from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to make it 2-0.

Connor McDavid got in behind the defence for two great chances in the third but was denied by Demko both times.

The Canucks pulled Demko for an extra skater with four minutes left, then went on a six-on-four when Darnell Nurse went off for cross-checking. Koskinen came up with a sliding save on Oliver Ekman-Larssson, then made a brilliant blocker stop on Brock Boeser.

Boeser did get one past Koskinen but with just 5.3 seconds on the clock.

“It starts with Mikko. Zach Hyman said. He made some huge saves. You can’t have a game like that without him. We bounce back after a loss on the road, we played a good Vancouver team. It was a great team effort.”

The Oilers went 2/2 on the power play and are 11/23 (47.8%) for the season.

“We had a lot of good chances in the game. Head Coach Dave Tippett said. “(Thatcher) Demko played really well. I liked the way we played. First period, we played really well. Second period, we turned some pucks over and chased it a little bit. But in the third, we’re pretty strong.”

Nugent-Hopkins has yet to score but has ten assists.

The Oilers, 6-1, will host Seattle on Monday.

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