Game Highlights 9.0: Dallas Stars beat Edmonton Oilers 4-3

The Edmonton Oilers are back in the loss column.

Sam Gagner scored two goals in his return to the team but it wasn’t enough as the Oilers fell by a score of 4-3 to the Dallas Stars. Below are the highlights from the game.

The Stars opened the scoring in the first period. Matt Duchene snuck behind Edmonton’s defenders at his own blueline, got sprung up the ice on a two-on-one, and sniped a shot five-hole on Stuart Skinner.

The Oilers tied the game at 1-1 late in the first frame. The puck bounced around just inside of Dallas’ blueline after a play that appeared to be offside and Evander Kane picked up and snapped a shot past Scott Wedgewood.

The Stars regained their lead early in the second period. Philip Broberg wasn’t able to get the puck in deep ahead of a line change and the Stars turned up ice quickly on a three-on-one. Roope Hintz fed Joe Pavelski with a cross-zone pass and the veteran wired a one-timer past Skinner to make the score 2-1.

Dallas added to their lead late in the second period while Kane was in the penalty box for hooking. The Stars carried the puck right into the slot in Edmonton’s zone, Pavelski poked a pass toward Skinner, and Hintz was there to bury the rebound.

Hintz scored his second goal of the game a few minutes into the third period to make the score 4-1. Starting from their own blueline, the Stars made three cross-ice passes that resulted in Hintz having an easy tap-in on the doorstep with nobody covering him. Evan Bouchard just watched the puck as Hintz moved into a prime scoring spot beside him.

In Sam Gagner’s first game back with the Oilers in his third go-around with the team, the veteran buried his first goal of the season. Gagner carried the puck into the zone, dropped it back to the point, and crashed the net to bury a rebound to make the score 4-2.

Gagner buried another one a few minutes later to bring the Oilers to within one goal. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to complete the hat trick and the Stars slammed the door in the final minutes to escape with a 4-3 win.

 

 

Another thing worth pointing out from this game is that Connor Brown appeared to injure himself accelerating off of a faceoff. He left down the tunnel, returned to the bench for a while, and then left again. Brown played 6:25 in the game. His $3.225 million performance bonus will kick in after one more game played this season.