Oilers defeat Canadiens for season-high fourth straight win

EDMONTON -- The Edmonton Oilers extended their winning streak to a season-high four games with a 4-1 victory against the Montreal Canadiens at Rogers Place on Saturday.
Ryan Strome, Connor McDavid, Milan Lucic and Jujhar Khaira scored for Edmonton (17-17-2), and Cam Talbot made 29 saves for his seventh consecutive win. Leon Draisaitl had three assists.

"I think we've been playing some really good hockey lately," Draisaitl said. "We're back to playing the way we were playing last year. We have all four lines going right now. It's nice to take that into the Christmas] break."
***[WATCH: [All Canadiens vs. Oilers highlights]*
McDavid was helped to the Oilers locker room with 2:20 remaining after blocking a Jeff Petry slap shot with his left foot.
"Connor blocked a shot, he came off, the doctors have X-rayed it, and it came back negative," McLellan said. "His foot is a little sore, obviously, from blocking it, but he's in good spirits. … I fully expect him to play [at the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday]."

Andrew Shaw scored for the Canadiens (16-16-5), who won 3-2 at the Calgary Flames on Friday. Antti Niemi made 31 saves in his first start since Nov. 22.
"We're playing a good hockey team and we made key mistakes at certain times of the game," Montreal forward Brendan Gallagher said. "And we had our chances. Their goalie made some saves. It's nothing to hang our head about, the effort."
Strome gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 13:49 of the first period when he scored on the rush from the bottom of the left face-off circle on a setup by Khaira from in front of the net.
McDavid put Edmonton up 2-0 at 15:50. He skated the puck from the right corner and scored with a wrist shot through traffic from above the left circle.
"They've got a lot of talent up front. They're pretty top-heavy," Canadiens defenseman David Schlemko said. "You have got to do a good job. It starts with executing a little better."

Lucic made it 3-0 on the power play at 4:21 of the second period, finishing off a three-way passing play started with a cross-ice pass from McDavid to Draisaitl.
"The last two games, we had teams coming in on back-to-backs, and this year, we haven't been great in the first period, so we wanted to address that," Oilers center Mark Letestu said. "We came out flying in the first period and we were skating and doing the right things, and we capitalized on a couple of good chances."
Shaw scored on the power play at 12:55 to cut the Oilers lead to 3-1. Paul Byron took a point shot, which was stopped by Talbot, but the puck bounced in off Shaw in front.
McLellan challenged for goaltender interference by Shaw on Talbot, but the goal was upheld following video review.
The Canadiens had several scoring chances before the end of the second, but Talbot made four saves to keep the Oilers ahead by two goals entering the third.
"We weren't good enough in the first half of the game," Montreal coach Claude Julien said. "I thought we picked it up in the second half. Obviously, that goal gave us a little bit of life. But we didn't seem to find our legs or even our momentum in the first half, and we seemed to be chasing the game more than anything else."

Khaira scored into an empty net with Niemi on the bench for an extra attacker at 18:02 of the third period to make it 4-1.
"I think everybody is buying in and we have all four lines playing well right now," Khaira said. "When we are playing like this, we are a tough team to play against."

Goal of the game

Strome's goal at 13:49 of the first period.

Save of the game

Talbot stopping Petry at 5:04 of the third period.

Highlight of the game

Lucic's goal at 4:21 of the second period.

They said it

"We had looks tonight, but still there's times where we can sustain pressure, and we're already backchecking before the puck is out of our zone. I don't know if that's confidence or what, but we've got to find ways to put pucks to the net and sustain offensive zone [time]." -- Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty
"We set a goal and we got there before Christmas. We wanted to get to .500, and we got there. Now, the next thing is to keep stringing these wins together." -- Oilers forward Patrick Maroon

Need to know

Three of Khaira's six goals this season have come against the Canadiens. … McDavid has 11 multipoint games this season, including three in the past eight games. … Schlemko and Oilers defenseman Kris Russell each had a game-high six blocked shots.

What's next

Canadiens: At the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; FS-CR, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV)
Oilers: At the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; SN, NHL.TV)