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No Draisaitl, no problem.
At least, that’s how it looked for the Edmonton Oilers Friday night as they were missing the big German in a 7-2 win over the Seattle Kraken. Things were hum for most of the day, and our own BaggedMilk was the first to report the Big Man may have been out of the lineup.
Thirty minutes before puck drop, word officially came down: Draisaitl was out of the lineup. While the ailment isn’t known, the Oilers knew they needed to step up.
It took the Oilers all of five minutes to score three goals and chase Philip Grubauer from the Kraken net. Those three, however, were just the start in a strong front-to-back performance from the Oilers.
The start of the show, to nobody’s surprise, was Connor McDavid. He assisted on four goals by the end of the night while scoring a beauty of his own late in the game. The performance was electric as right off the opening draw, he was ready to go. He knew he was going to need to step up with Draisaitl out of the lineup, and boy, did he deliver.
Even into the dying minutes of the game, McDavid sprinted back into the Oilers zone to stop a sure-fire Andre Burakovsky goal. He did it all and then some last night.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a decent night of his own, too. He chipped in four assists on the night as well, making his impact more than felt

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The night wasn’t just about those two, though. Klim Kostin and Zach Hyman both had two-goal performances as the latter came close to his second career hat trick and his second of the season. Darnell Nurse got on the board with a goal and an assist of his own, too.
As a whole, it was the kind of game the Oilers really needed. One where the depth scoring comes up big ways while the stars did their own work.
Even when the Kraken pushed hard in the second and third periods, it never felt like the Oilers lead was ever in doubt. In the second and third period, the Kraken only musted four high-danger scoring chances at 5×5. Edmonton kept them to the outside and showed they can play the style of game that chokes out an opponent.
And when things got testy, Edmonton didn’t back down. Dylan Holloway got in his first NHL fight with Vince Dunn, while Kostin picked up a double minor for some late rough stuff.
It’s a tight turnaround for the Oilers, who take on the Winnipeg Jets tonight.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.