Oilers score six against Avalanche, win fourth straight

DENVER -- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored two of the four goals for the Edmonton Oilers in the second period in a 6-4 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Pepsi Center on Tuesday.

Leon Draisaitl had a goal and two assists, and Connor McDavid, Darnell Nurse and Kyle Brodziak each had a goal and an assist for Edmonton (17-12-2), which has won four straight games and is 8-2-1 under coach Ken Hitchcock.
"I think we just stayed on top of them a lot," Nugent-Hopkins said. "We didn't really give them a lot of time to breathe. We were just in their face a lot and putting pucks right back into their zone and not letting them come out and get fresh bodies out. That was kind of our plan, we wanted to keep them hemmed in a lot and use our size, use our playmaking ability down low."
WATCH: [All Oilers vs. Avalanche highlights]
Mikko Koskinen made 39 saves and is 6-1-1 in his past eight starts.
"I thought our goaltender was our best player, which if you're going to win in this building he has to be," Hitchcock said. "Overall, when you win on the road, and especially in this building, that team is going to be one of the best teams in the Western Conference, that's a real good feather in our cap."
Mikko Rantanen had a goal and three assists to extend his point streak to 12 games, Gabriel Landeskog had two goals and two assists, and Nathan MacKinnon had two assists for Colorado (17-9-5), which has allowed at least six goals in three of its past four games (1-3-0).

Semyon Varlamov allowed three goals on 18 shots. He was replaced in the second period by Philipp Grubauer, who made five saves on eight shots.
"At that point, it's 3-0 and I felt like they were starting to gain steam," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "It's not necessarily so much a Varlamov pull as a team pull. We needed to get something going. We had to try and jump start our team somehow."
Brodziak gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 13:51 of the first period.
Nugent-Hopkins scored a power-play goal off a cross-ice pass in the left circle to make it 2-0 at 9:26 of the second period. It was Edmonton's first goal on the power play in 19 chances.

Nugent-Hopkins extended the lead to 3-0 on a shot from the slot at 13:37, and McDavid skated down left wing and scored on the first shot Grubauer faced to make it 4-0 at 15:14.
Rantanen made it 4-1 at 16:01 with a shot from the right circle. He has 23 points (six goals, 17 assists) during his point streak and leads the NHL with 52 points (13 goals, 39 assists).
"You have to play as hard as you can every shift until the last shift of the game, so that's what I try to do," Rantanen said. "No matter what the score is, I try to play hard."
Draisaitl scored 41 seconds later to make it 5-1 on a rebound at the right post.

Colin Wilson scored a power-play goal in the slot to make it 5-2 at 1:41 of the third period, but Nurse extended the lead to 6-2 at 3:05 on a slap shot from the point on the power play.
Landeskog cut it to 6-3 at 16:11 before scoring again with Grubauer pulled for the extra skater at 18:53 to make it 6-4.
"I think that the first 35 minutes were the best of my year, but then the last 25 was a little bit casual," Koskinen said. "It wasn't that great, but we're glad we got the win."

They said it

"I don't think either team could handle the other team's best players. They didn't have defense to handle our guys and we struggled to handle their guys. World class players. Overall, when you've got star players who are dialed in like that, it's hard to defend." --Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock

"When we were on our winning streak (9-0-2 from Nov. 11-Dec. 2), we weren't too high. Now we're on this two-game losing streak and we're not too low. We're not happy with it, but there's still confidence that we're going to bounce back and go on another streak here. You're going to lose two games in a row sometimes." -- Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson

Need to know

Oilers defenseman Oscar Klefbom left the game in the second period with a hand injury. Hitchcock said he will be out "weeks not days" and will head back to Edmonton immediately for further evaluation. … McDavid has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in a six-game point streak and 20 points (seven goals, 13 assists) in his past 13 games … MacKinnon has 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in his past 12 games … Landeskog has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in a five-game point streak.

What's next

Oilers: At the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; TSN3, SNW, NHL.TV)
Avalanche:At the St. Louis Blues on Friday (8 p.m. ET; FS-MW, ALT2, NHL.TV)