EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Connor McDavid had two goals and an assist, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 Wednesday night.
Zach Hyman and Klim Kostin each had a goal and an assist, and Kailer Yamamoto also scored as Edmonton won for the third time in five games. Stuart Skinner had 26 saves.
“Big win here tonight,” McDavid said. “You're playing a good team. They're always going to have momentum swings. I thought we did a good job of managing that, we defended well.”
For McDavid, it was his fifth straight multi-goal game. He became the fifth player in NHL history to have such a run, joining Joe Malone (1921), Punch Broadbent (1922), Alexander Mogilny (1993) and Mario Lemieux (1989).
“Sometimes it just goes in,” McDavid said. “I felt like I was playing good hockey kind of before, it just wasn't going in for me. You get a bounce and it seems to go in for you. It's a funny game that way.”
Mitchell Marner had a goal and an assist, and David Kampf also scored for the Maple Leafs, who had won five of their previous six games. Ilya Samsonov stopped 27 shots.
“We wanted to try and keep these guys out of the middle and didn’t do a great job of that tonight,” Marner said. “We let them have the freedom, speed and space through that neutral zone and they can make you pay for it and they did.”
McDavid gave the Oilers a 2-1 lead with his second goal of the night and 52nd of the season as he got a pass from Kostin, skated down the middle of the ice, maneuvered into the left circle and fired a shot that beat Samsonov with 6:07 left in the first period. It was his 10th goal in the last five games.
“He’s coming at teams at a certain level of pace that backs them off,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said of McDavid. “He’s willing to shoot through traffic. He goes to hard areas to score. He played a great game tonight.”
Hyman fired a shot from the left circle that was blocked, but the puck came back to him and he beat Samsonov from between the circles for his career-best 29th with 1:55 left in the opening period to give Edmonton a two-goal lead.
Yamamoto deflected a shot by Cody Ceci at 8:46 of the second, and Kostin scored from the left side off a pass from Ryan McLeod 2:48 left in the middle period to push the Oilers' lead to 5-1.
“We didn’t have a very good start, obviously, letting their best people get going and getting opportunities off the rush and grabbing the lead,” Toronto forward John Tavares said. “They defended hard, played us hard and we weren’t at the level that we needed to be.”
Marner scored a power-play goal from the right circle at 1:08 of the third to pull the Maple Leafs within three.
It seemed as though Edmonton had rapidly responded with another power-play goal by Warren Foegele, but a quick whistle negated the goal.
McDavid got the Oilers on the scoreboard first with a power-play goal as he knocked in the rebound of Leon Draisaitl's shot from the right side in front 3:49 into the game.
Kampf tied it 1-1 as he got a pass from Marner, skated up and beat Skinner from between the circles for his seventh with 7:45 left in the first.
MILESTONE
Toronto's William Nylander played in his 500th career game.
DEBUTS
D Mattias Ekholm, acquired from Nashville on Tuesday, made his Oilers debut. ... D Jake McCabe and F Sam Lafferty both played their first game with Toronto after coming over rom Chicago. D Luke Schenn joined the team after being acquired from Vancouver but did not dress. D Erik Gustafsson, acquired from Washington, will join the Blackhawks in Calgary on Thursday.
UP NEXT
Maple Leafs: At Calgary on Thursday night in the third of a five-game trip.
Oilers: Host Winnipeg on Friday night in the finale of a three-game homestand and opener of a home-and-home set with the Jets.
___
AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL and https://www.twitter.com/AP_Sports
