Leon Draisaitl had his 17-game home point streak come to an end tonight, along with Connor McDavid serving the final game of his suspension, but that didn’t stop the Oilers from being able to pull off a 3–2 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
The team was lead tonight by strong performances from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Stuart Skinner, along with former Sabre Jeff Skinner putting one up against his former club. While it wasn’t the prettiest win statistically speaking, they still pulled through in the end. Let’s look at our takeaways from the game below.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 5v5 breakthrough
It has been a tough year offensively so far for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. his 1.03 P/60 at 5v5 coming into today ranked dead last among all Oilers forwards. While he is still producing on the power play, he needs to produce more at 5v5 to justify his usage on the top line.
Hopefully today is something to build off of for Nugent-Hopkins, who scored twice at even strength: one goal came off a beautiful setup from Kasperi Kapanen, while the second came off a nice pass from Darnell Nurse.
Nugent-Hopkin’s line was the most utilized at even strength today and dominated most of the possession stats, from out chancing the Sabres 7–4, to controlling 61.3% of the expected goals. On a night where Draisaitl’s line struggled in comparison, Nugent-Hopkins stepped up in a huge way.
Stuart Skinner continues to bounce back
Much like the way the season has gone so far, Stuart Skinner has once again found a way to bounce back in a big way. After two poor starts against the Vancouver Canucks and Washington Capitals this past week, Skinner stopped 39 of 41 shots against the Sabres, most impressively stopping all 12 shots that came from Buffalo’s powerplay.
In a game where the Oilers certainly didn’t play up to their highest standard, Skinner stood on his head at certain points of the game, especially in the third period where the Oilers were heavily outplayed. Consistency remains the biggest question mark, but the team will definitely take a performance like this.
First in the Pacific
For the first time in nearly five years, the Oilers have found themselves at the top of the division this deep into the season. It has certainly taken far longer than anyone would have wanted. Whether that is because of poor starts to the season, or just other teams getting into strong grooves for good portions of a season, the Oilers just haven’t had the regular season success you would expect a team with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to have.
There still are question marks on this team, but the fact that they are where they are now with those flaws, shows the upside that this group has. Management should be doing everything in their power to fix those flaws to make the team truly the best it can possibly be.
What’s next for the Oilers?
The Oilers are now one point ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights who will play on Sunday against the Florida Panthers for the top of the division. Meanwhile the Oilers get a day off before having to play the Seattle Kraken on Monday night, a matchup in which Edmonton has dominated throughout the Kraken’s short existence.
All stats are courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com
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