The Edmonton Oilers are going streaking.
On Saturday night, the team headed to Denver to play the Colorado Avalanche for the first time this is season. The result was one of the most complete games of the year with a ton of depth scoring, as the Oilers defeated the Avalanche 4-1 to bring their record to 13-9-2.
Unfortunately, the Oilers’ lengthy penalty kill streak came to an end. Seven minutes into the first period, Avalanche forward Nikolai Kovalenko scored on the power play to give the opposition their only goal of the game. If that name looks familiar, his father Andrei played for the Oilers in the late ’90s.
With just over eight minutes remaining in the first period, Kasperi Kapanen scored his first as an Oiler, as a sick feed from Connor McDavid was an easy tap in for one of the newest Oilers. The score was tied at one heading into the second period.
Edmonton scored the game-winning goal with just over six minutes left in the second period. For the third consecutive game, Vasily Podkolzin scored, this time with a nice deflection in front of the net. It’s nice to see him get on the board after a good start to his season.
The Oilers added an insurance goal four minutes into the final frame, as Brett Kulak’s seeing-eye point shot beat Alexandar Georgiev (the first Bulgarian-born NHL’er) for the 3-1 lead. This was Kulak’s fifth of the season, the Oilers made the right choice in keeping him.
Scoring for the second time in as many games was Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who buried the empty netter to give us the final score of 4-1. Overall, it was just a complete effort from the team and it’s easily the closest they’ve looked to the Stanley Cup Final team they were last season.

Takeaways…

Nikolai Kovalenko’s goal in the first period ended the Oilers’ eight-game streak of not allowing a goal on the penalty kill, as they killed off 17 consecutive penalties. Overall, it was still a good night for the Oilers’ PK, as they killed off four penalties on five chances. Their power play went 0/2.
A big reason for the Oilers’ dominance in the game was the faceoffs, as they won a whopping 69.8% of draws. Shots were close, as the Oilers outshot the Avalanche 32-28, with the Oilers blocking 15 shots.
On the score sheet, seven different forwards and four defencemen picked up a point in the game, with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins being the only Oilers with a multi-point effort. Depth scoring was certainly in the spotlight, as Connor McDavid picked up a lone assist while Leon Draisaitl was held pointless.
Stuart Skinner had one of his best starts of the season between the pipes, as he saved 27 of 28 shots for a .964 save percentage. This was Skinner’s second-best save percentage of the season and this number rose from .882 to .887. Good stuff.
The Oilers go from playing the 2022 Stanley Cup winners to playing the 2023 Stanley Cup winners, as they head to Sin City to play the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday at 8:00 PM MT.
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