Hurricanes hang on to defeat Oilers

EDMONTON -- Nino Niederreiter scored his first two goals for the Carolina Hurricanes in a 7-4 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place on Sunday.

The forward was acquired in a trade from the Minnesota Wild for forward Victor Rask on Jan. 17.
"It's always nice if you get a chance to score, but more importantly, we got the win we needed," said Niederreiter, who played his 500th NHL game. "They played last night, so we knew we had to take advantage of that. They're a really good team, they have a lot of speed, and that's exactly what we did, we came out flying and had a good first period."
WATCH: [All Hurricanes vs. Oilers highlights]
Lucas Wallmark scored two goals and had an assist, and Andrei Svechnikov had a goal and two assists for Carolina (23-20-5), which won for the first time in three games and is 8-3-0 in its past 11. Jaccob Slavin and Sebastian Aho each had three assists, and goalie Petr Mrazek made 17 saves for his fourth win in his past six starts.
"Anytime you come to a new team, you want to contribute and you want to show everybody that you're a player," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said of Niederreiter. "After he got his couple, then he got a couple of penalties and he didn't feel that great about it. But we need him to contribute that way."
Leon Draisaitl had two goals and an assist, and Brandon Manning and Zack Kassian scored for Edmonton (23-23-3), which was coming off a 5-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday. Connor McDavid had two assists.
Cam Talbot allowed three goals on 15 shots before being replaced by Mikko Koskinen at 11:02 of the first period. Koskinen made 15 saves.
"We just didn't have much," Draisaitl said. "We just weren't good enough. They beat us to loose pucks, and you are not going to win that way. They were on their toes, and we weren't."

The Oilers scored three straight goals after the Hurricanes took a 6-1 lead on Jordan Martinook's 10th of the season at 18:29 of the second period.
Wallmark scored into an empty net with 2:22 remaining for the 7-4 final.
"We got off to a great start there, and it gave us some confidence," Wallmark said. "Overall, we had a really good game."
Niederreiter scored on the first shot of the game 28 seconds into the first period to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead.
Svechnikov made it 2-0 at 6:35, and Niederreiter scored at 11:02 to give the Hurricanes a 3-0 lead.
"The start was obviously what we talked about doing, and it couldn't have went really any better," Brind'Amour said. "You have to give the guys credit, it was a 60-minute effort, for the most part. The effort level was high, and we deserved that game."

Manning scored from the slot on a pass from McDavid to make it 3-1 with 51 seconds left in the first.
Brock McGinn made it 4-1 at 1:50 of the second period, one-timing a loose puck from the right hash marks after Svechnikov played it into the crease from behind the net.
Wallmark scored to make it 5-1 at 4:07.
"Our 5-on-5 play wasn't good enough," Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock said. "It's not close to the elements that you need in your 5-on-5 game to be successful in the National Hockey League. We're not good enough. We give up too many quality chances, too many pucks come back at us."
After Martinook gave Carolina a five-goal lead, Draisaitl scored on a 2-on-1 with Jujhar Khaira to make it 6-2 with 19 seconds left in the second. It was Draisaitl's 100th NHL goal.

Kassian made it 6-3 when he tipped in Matt Benning's point shot 14 seconds into the third period.
Draisaitl scored on the power play at 7:07 to make it 6-4.
"When you're up 6-1, the other team, they have nothing to lose," Niederreiter said. "They are going to change their game, they're going to try to cheat and go for offense, and that way they sometimes create opportunities for themselves. They capitalized on it, and I think that's what happened."

They said it

"I felt pretty good out there tonight. I had nine games without a point, without anything, but I felt really good tonight and I'm super happy we won this game." -- Hurricanes rookie forward Andrei Svechnikov on his first three-point game in the NHL
"They were ready to play, and we weren't. We gave up way too many Grade A chances and left our goalie out to dry. It's really unfortunate that was the way we came out to play after a loss last night (5-2 to the Flames)." -- Oilers forward Milan Lucic

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Need to know

Hurricanes forward Micheal Ferland was scratched with an undisclosed injury after participating in warmups. ... Carolina played with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. ... Aho and Slavin each had three assists for the first time this season. ... It was the fifth time this season that Draisaitl scored two goals in a game. He did not have a multigoal game in 2017-18 and has not scored a hat trick in his NHL career.

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What's next

Hurricanes: At the Calgary Flames on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; SNW, FS-SE, NHL.TV)
Oilers: Host the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; NBCSN, SN1, SNE, SNO, SNP, NHL.TV)