GAME RECAP: Blue Jackets 4, Oilers 2

EDMONTON, AB – Connor McDavid recorded his 100th point of the season, but the Edmonton Oilers had their five-game winning streak snapped on Thursday night after falling 4-2 to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.

The Oilers captain assisted Zach Hyman's 43rd goal of the season in the second period to reach the century mark for the seventh time in his career, while also stretching his point streak to 13 games where he's recorded two goals and 27 assists, but the Oilers were left chasing the game after giving up goals to Mathieu Joseph, Alex Nylander and Dmitri Voronkov in the opening 20 minutes to trail 3-0 at the first intermission.

After Hyman scored, Corey Perry halved the deficit in the third period near the end of an extended power play with a deflection on a shot from Evander Kane, but goaltender Daniil Tarasov was excellent in keeping the Oilers out all evening, finishing with 32 saves in a first-star performance.

Forwards Adam Henrique and Sam Carrick recorded 14:14 and 7:38 of time on ice, respectively, in their Oilers debuts after being acquired from the Anaheim Ducks via trade on Wednesday.

"One of the things is you want to get here as soon as possible and get into the mix," Henrique said. "There's no sense in taking an extra day. I think getting here and getting that first game under my belt was important."

The Oilers continue their four-game road trip with the start of back-to-back afternoon games this weekend on Saturday against the Buffalo Sabres following Friday's 1:00 p.m. MT Trade Deadline.

FIRST PERIOD

It certainly wasn't the start the Oilers would've wanted.

Edmonton put nine shot attempts on Blue Jackets netminder Daniil Tarasov in opening first three minutes, but weren't able to turn any of those opportunities into a goal despite great chances for Warren Foegele and Zach Hyman around the crease in the first few shifts at Nationwide Arena.

Soon after, the Oilers were regretting those early missed chances when the Blue Jackets began to take advantage of their own miscues that cost them three goals before the first intermission arrived.

The Oilers failed to get the puck out of their own zone past the six-minute mark of the first frame, which resulted in Mathieu Olivier finishing off a quick shot from the right circle set up by Sean Kuraly to give Columbus the 1-0 lead.

Almost eight minutes later, a waved-off icing by the officials and a failed reverse by Cody Ceci below the goal line allowed Cole Sillinger to strip the puck off Ceci's defensive partner Darnell Nurse before centring it to Alex Nylander, who scored his fifth goal in seven games for the Blue Jackets to double the Columbus advantage.

Carrick tried to spark his new side with a fight against Olivier off the faceoff, but the Blue Jackets would make it 3-0 just 27 seconds when Foegele's errant pass along the Oilers near the benches allowed one of the NHL's rookie leading goalscorers in Dmitri Voronkov to walk in uncontested and fire his 18th of the campaign past Pickard with 4:39 left in the opening frame.

"The onus is on me there," Foegele said. "I turn over the puck after Sammy comes in here, a new guy and a character guy, and has a massive fight to get us some energy. Unfortunately, I went out there and turned over the puck and I know I can't do that. We move forward from here."

SECOND PERIOD

Connor McDavid picked up his 100th point of the season by redirecting the puck into the path of Zach Hyman to score his 43rd goal of the season, making it 3-1 for Columbus less than two minutes into the middle frame.

The captain was reunited with Leon Draisaitl and Hyman on the top line by Head Coach Kris Knoblauch to begin the frame, and the Oilers finally received a bounce when the captain kicked a high pass from Draisaitl ahead to Hyman, who had open ice to hammer home Edmonton's first goal of the game.

"I don't think we were ready to play our puck management; maybe not our decision-making, but just our execution and breaking the puck out and then also, on the line entries against," Knoblauch said. "We were just giving it away so much and I think there was many poor intentions. It was just execution that didn't happen."

McDavid extended his point streak to 13 games with his 100th point of the season, which is the seventh time he's done it in his career.

The Oilers were still guilty of turnovers in the second frame, with Evan Bouchard giving away a puck to Jack Roslovic that required two massive stops from Calvin Pickard in close to bail out his defenceman and maintain the two-goal deficit for the Oilers through 40 minutes.

"There's nothing to really blame it on," Henrique said. "I think just a couple of mistakes that ended up in the back of our net. Sammy does a great job going there and that's a big fight. That's a tough job to do and we just got to respond after and have a good shift with some energy, so I thought we responded pretty well in the second period, but just came up short there.

"We had some opportunities, but not maybe enough offensively."

THIRD PERIOD

When Edmonton was given 50 seconds of five-on-three power-play time at the midway mark of the final frame, they knew they had to get out of the man advantage with something; or else, the task of coming back for the second straight game would be that much harder.

After the Oilers first-unit power play couldn't cash in on the two-man advantage, Corey Perry parked himself out front for the final 30 seconds of the power play and put a deflection on Evander Kane's shot from the left face-off dot that beat the resilient Tarasov between the pipes for Columbus, making it 3-2 with less than eight minutes left.

Tarasov came up big again with Edmonton's net empty to deny the Oilers another late comeback, sticking out the right pad against Hyman before Roslovic iced the game with an empty-netter.

PARTING WORDS

Foegele on the stress of the Trade Deadline:

"It's just part of the job, though, right? I think anyone would want to be in our position to play the game that we love, and that comes with the pros and cons of this week I guess. But at the end of the day, we got to show up for 60 minutes and as a group, we didn't do that and we can't turn over pucks."

Henrique on making his Oilers debut:

"The guys did a good job just talking to me on whatever line was going and just trying to be same page and just try to go out there and play. I had a couple of opportunities, a bad penalty on my part to take at the time, but overall felt pretty good."

Knoblauch on evaluating Henrique & Carrick's debuts:

"It's good to have those guys. We got to see them. Obviously, we know them a little bit from playing against them, and we had the scouting report and looked at video and we know what type of players they are, but until you see them on the ice and with your team, you don't really know. Until then, we've got a better feeling on them. But like I said, it's tough to evaluate them just because overall, I don't think we played very well as a team."