Connor McDavid had two goals and two assists and the host Edmonton Oilers defeated the Montreal Canadiens 5-3 on Saturday.
Leon Draisaitl added a goal and three assists for Edmonton, which dissected Montreal on the power play and scored three times with the man advantage.
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Stuart Skinner made 30 saves for the Oilers. It was a statement start for Skinner, who has now seemingly supplanted Jack Campbell as the starting goalie in Edmonton, a development that comes after the Oilers signed the latter to a large five-year contract as a free agent in the offseason.
Nick Suzuki, Evgenii Dadonov and Arber Xhekaj scored, and Jake Allen made 17 saves for the Canadiens in the loss.
The second period then featured six goals.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins tied the game on an Edmonton power play, finishing off a tic-tac-toe play with McDavid and Draisaitl for his 13th goal of the season 1:25 into the second period.
Draisaitl gave Edmonton a 2-1 lead during a five-on-three power play roughly five minutes later, blasting home a one-timer after a feed from McDavid.
McDavid then scored his own power-play goal at 9:36 of the period, beating Allen between the legs to give Edmonton a 3-1 lead after a save on the other end of the ice by Skinner.
Dadonov scored his second goal of the season to cut the deficit to 3-2 for Montreal, and Xhekaj tied the game at 3-3 with a shot from the point.
Darnell Nurse then scored late, with five seconds remaining in the period, to give Edmonton a 4-3 edge after Zach Hyman had forced a turnover below the Montreal goal line.
McDavid added an insurance goal for Edmonton at 14:40 of the third period to make it 5-3, once again assisted by Draisaitl.
Montreal played the majority of the game with five defensemen after Joel Edmundson was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for cross-checking Hyman in the head 5:20 into the second period.
That penalty helped set up the five-on-three where Draisaitl scored, as well as the goal by McDavid that made it 3-1.
–Field Level Media
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