The Edmonton Oilers pulled off a magnificent 6-4 win over the Seattle Kraken at the Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday (March 18), overcoming a sloppy game with opportunistic goals.
Edmonton was never behind, leading 48-23 in the 60-minute contest and responding with the next goal whenever Seattle either scored to equal the score or drew within a game.
Evander Kane led with his first hat-trick of the season, while veteran Oilers forward Zack Hyman scored 30 goals for the first time in his career, and teammate Connor McDavid added a No. 58 goal to his league lead in 2022-23.
Oilers winger Kailer Yamamoto also lit the lamp as the Washington native scored a goal for all the family and friends who came to see him. Leon Draisaitl and Mattias Ekholm each collected three assists to win.
Stuart Skinner stopped 33 of 37 shots fired by Seattle, which with a regular win could have overtaken the Oilers in the Pacific Division standings. Instead, Edmonton takes a three-point lead over Seattle for third place and is four points behind the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights, who are tied for division leadership by 90 points each.
All in all, there’s a lot to like about the stats after Edmonton’s 39th win of 2022-23. Here’s a deeper dive into the numbers.
Milestone for Hyman
Hyman has been waiting a long time to score 30 goals. This is the eighth season of his career, and his previous career high was 27 in 2021-22.
His last tally came on March 1, when he scored the decisive goal in Edmonton’s 5-2 win over his former team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, at Rogers Place. Since then, the 30-year-old has stuck with 29 goals. He went five straight games without scoring and then missed Edmonton’s previous two games before Saturday with an undisclosed injury.
Zach Hyman, Edmonton Oilers (Jess Starr/The Hockey Writers)
Hyman joins Draisaitl, McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as Oilers to hit 30-goal mark in 2022-23. The last time four Edmonton players scored at least 30 goals in an NHL season was in 1989-90, when Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Craig Simpson and Esa Tikkanen equaled that tally. This is notable as 1990 was also the last time Edmonton won the Stanley Cup.
Draisaitl and McDavid Go Old School
With an assist hat-trick, Draisaitl went from 57 assists to 60 this season, along with his 44 goals. This is the German striker’s second season with at least 60 apples, the first coming in 2019-20. McDavid, meanwhile, has up to 76 assists in the league after catching two against the Kraken.
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The last time multiple Oilers players had at least 40 goals and 60 assists in the same season was 1985-86 when Paul Coffey, Wayne Gretzky and Kurri did. It also happened in 1983-84 (Coffey, Gretzky, Kurri) and 1984-85 (Gretzky, Kurri), both of which were Stanley Cup seasons for the Oilers.
A lot of goals when the Oilers play
Saturday marked the 11th time in Edmonton’s last 18 games that the teams have combined to score at least nine goals. The Oilers have scored four or more goals in all but five of those games. If you’re a betting fan who likes to play over/under, 15 of the last 20 Oilers games have gone over 6.5.
The win was also Edmonton’s fifth of the 2022-23 season as he conceded four or more goals, indicating the Oilers’ strong offense. With this formula, can they keep winning in the postseason, or do the Oilers need to improve on their underperforming defensive play and maybe reach a higher goaltending level as well?
The Oilers goaltenders are up and down
After Saturday’s tilt, the Oilers have now played 32 games in calendar year 2023. In the first 16 games, Oilers goalie Jack Campbell recorded nine wins to his counterpart Skinner one. In their last 16 games, Skinner has nine wins and Campbell has none.
Also see: Oilers Walking Fine Line with Goalie Duo of Campbell and Skinner
Returning to the goalie question above, the glass-half-full perspective says that a goalie is always in his game at all times, while the glass-half-empty mindset says that both goalies are never up to theirs respective game are the same time.
Oilers on a Roll with Ekholm
Since acquiring Ekholm in a trade with the Nashville Predators on Feb. 28, Edmonton has won 7-2-0. The veteran blueliner has worked brilliantly for the Oilers with seven points and an incredible plus-13 rating in nine games with his new team.
But despite their hot streak, the Oilers haven’t significantly improved their standings overall. They wake up Sunday (March 19) in the same place they woke up on March 1: third from the top in the Pacific Division, four points behind the Kings and Golden Knights.
What the Oilers have done is put some distance between themselves and the first team outside of the playoff picture, the Calgary Flames. Edmonton’s lead over provincial rivals has grown from five to nine points since early March.
The Oilers will be looking to continue their winning streak and hopefully close the gap for first place when they next meet the San Jose Sharks on Monday (March 20) at Rogers Place.
Source : thehockeywriters.com