GAME RECAP: Oilers 4, Red Wings 1

EDMONTON, AB – Zach-trick season is upon us.

Winger Zach Hyman recorded his sixth-career hat-trick, while captain Connor McDavid contributed four assists for the Edmonton Oilers, who closed out their five-game homestand on Thursday night with a 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings at Rogers Place.

"I think the hands are good," Hyman said. "Goalscoring is funny. It's very confidence-based. You can ask anyone, no matter who you are – if you see the puck go in, it goes in more often.

Hyman opened the scoring on the power play with 5:35 left in the first period before finishing off a terrific pass from McDavid during the middle frame, making it 3-1 for the Oilers before converting the hat-trick into an empty net late in the third for his first since Mar. 13, 2024 against the Washington Capitals.

"You just have a mentality that you're going to score, and when it's not going in, it's almost like when you're ever going to score. So whenever you're scoring, you want to make sure that you're continuing to work and you're continuing to get your chances."

McDavid assisted on each of Hyman's three goals and added another helper on Mattias Ekholm's third of the campaign 2:46 into the second period, extending his multi-game point streak to four games, totalling five goals and seven assists after being reunited with Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

"It's my job to be an impact player and help move the needle for us to generate chances," McDavid said. "It was a good homestand for our line. It was nice to play with those two, who I'm really comfortable with, and all three guys are really comfortable playing together. It's nice to be back with those two."

Leon Draisaitl tallied two helpers and sits four points away from reaching 1,000 for his career.

Stuart Skinner made 27 saves for the Oilers, who finished their homestand with a 3-1-1 record as they now prepare to head east for a five-game road trip that begins on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena with the first of a back-to-back against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"It's massive," Skinner said. "It's an insanely competitive league. Every team is finding ways to win and climbing up the standings, so for us to get a few wins here was really important, especially at home. You want to try to bank in as many as you can."

FIRST PERIOD

With frosty temperatures outside in Oil Country this week, it took the Oilers a chunk of the first period to heat up before their special teams played a huge part in getting them to the first intermission with a 1-0 lead over the Red Wings, setting the stage for a strong 60 minutes on Thursday.

"I thought we played pretty solid 60 minutes, and they had some pushes. They've got some good players," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "When we did have some breakdowns and gave up opportunities, Stu was solid. A lot of big saves from him, but throughout the roster, a lot of guys had good games."

Detroit was the better team in the first half of the frame, with the first whistle coming almost eight minutes into regulation before a two-on-one between Curtis Lazar and David Tomasek just inside the nine-minute mark really kick-started Edmonton's arrival in the opening 20 minutes.

Tomasek was stopped in tight by former Oilers' netminder Cam Talbot off the cross-ice pass from Lazar before Mattias Ekholm laid the boom behind his own team's net on Emmitt Finnie with a heavy check that the rookie didn't see coming – the biggest of Edmonton's 13 total hits delivered in the first period.

Ekholm's big hit was followed by a strong shift from the second line of Vasily Podkolzin, Leon Draisaitl and Matt Savoie, with Savoie being stopped by Talbot off a dangerous rebound off a shot from distance from Darnell Nurse before Patrick Kane tripped up Draisaitl in the Detroit zone for the game's first penalty.

On the ensuing man advantage, McDavid made a pass down low and received a return feed in the slot, electing to hold onto the puck instead of shooting before filtering it back in front for Hyman to come in and tap home his third goal of the season to give the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 5:35 of the opening frame.

Hyman recorded his 450th career point with the marker, and the Oilers were looking to improve on their 10-1-3 record this year when notching the first goal.

The Oilers finished 1-for-2 with the man advantage on Thursday to give themselves six PPGs in their last seven games, and nine in their last 10.

"I think first and foremost, Paul McFarland does a good job preparing the guys and has a good plan; a pre-scout on what to do for the other team coming in," Knoblauch said. "But it's our players, they're just dialled in and ready to capitalize, and they've had to because we haven't had many power plays, and the ones that we have had, they haven't really wasted them. The other night, I believe we went 0-for-4, but I felt like we had some opportunities that we could've scored on.

"Pretty much all season, our power play's been dialled in."

The job wasn't done before the intermission, however, with an interference call assessed to Matt Savoie with 2:18 left in the frame, resulting in the Oilers having to kill a penalty to preserve their one-goal lead through 20 minutes.

Stuart Skinner squeezed shut a difficult one-timer from Lucas Raymond to keep it from crossing the goal line for the best of his three saves on the Detroit power play, helping keep the Oilers ahead 1-0 entering the intermission.

"I think sometimes when you feel the puck a few times, especially at the beginning, you just kind of get into a rhythm," Skinner said. "And as a goalie, I think it's so important to feel that right away. We kind of talked about that the other day, finding that rhythm is like finding that flow. So making a couple good saves early always gives you a little bit of a confidence boost."

After Thursday's performance, Skinner has now posted a save percentage of .937 over his last five games, while winning four out of his last six starts.

"Honestly, it might sound crazy, but it's the same stuff that I felt at the beginning of the season," he said. "I've been feeling good. I feel like my game's in a pretty good spot right now."

SECOND PERIOD

It was a different story through 40 minutes for the Oilers back on Tuesday against the Sabres, but they were looking comfortable through two periods versus the Red Wings on Thursday, holding a 3-1 lead after Ekholm added another before Hyman responded to a Detroit breakthrough with his second of the night.

The Swedish defenceman snuck through his third goal of the campaign under the left arm of Talbot 2:46 into the second period, blasting home McDavid's drop pass at the top of Detroit's zone through traffic to increase the lead to 2-0 for the Oilers. Nugent-Hopkins recorded the secondary helper.

Ekholm is now riding a four-game point streak (1G, 4A) and has nine points (2G, 7A) over his last nine games, while McDavid had already pushed his multi-game point streak to four with assists on each of Edmonton's first two goals in this one.

"He's just taking this game to another level, and I don't have an answer for it, but I know he's been very dialled in," Knoblauch said. "He's taking it to another level these last couple of weeks. He wants to watch a video, he wants to watch what the other team does, looking at past shifts from the previous game, and just really wants to get his game to a level, but also bring his linemates in with him so they're all in sync.

"I don't really have an answer for it other than he just knows the season hasn't gone as well as a team, as well as we wanted it to, and we need to get some wins. And as your leader, your captain and a star player, he's taken it pretty much on himself to turn this around. We've got other guys who've played very well, but for him, I know that's kind of what's on his mind as he wants to be a difference maker."

But the captain wasn't done there, collecting another helper later in the middle frame with an incredible pass below the goal line to Hyman for his second of the night after the Red Wings got a goal back before the six-minute mark from Simon Edvinsson to make it 3-1 for the Oilers.

After Edvinsson managed to chip one past Skinner off the rush 3:05 following Ekholm's tally that made it a two-goal lead, McDavid set up Hyman in front with 2:12 left in the period, corraling a puck that came through the Detroit crease before batting the puck through his own legs and onto the tape of his linemate to restore his team's advantage before the intermission.

Hyman now has 35 multi-goal games in his career after scoring twice against the Red Wings tonight.

THIRD PERIOD

It always felt like Hyman was going to get his hat-trick.

The Oilers would've liked the way they locked down the lead in the third period after letting some opportunities slip during this road trip, and an empty-netter for Hyman was the icing on the cake for a terrific 4-1 victory over the Red Wings to conclude their five-game homestand with a 3-1-1 record.

"It was really important," Skinner said. "We definitely learned our lesson from the other night, and you can see that just by comparing our first period and second period. So being able to start the way that we did, I think we were able to get some momentum off that."

The Red Wings pulled Talbot for the extra attacker with plenty of time for them to try and erase a two-goal lead, but if it weren't for a couple of near misses on the empty net – including one from Hyman – before No. 18 iced the victory, it could've been over a lot sooner.

McDavid was actively trying to get Hyman his hat-trick in the last minutes after the captain was the last Oiler to record three goals only four games ago with three goals and an assist in a 9-4 win over the Kraken on Dec. 4. Hyman had his first look from the right side of the neutral zone when he had an attempt blocked before his follow-up struck the side of the outside of the post, and he thought that might've been his last chance.

"I didn't want to miss again," Hyman joked.

Podkolzin then had the best chance to put it away on an open net, but instead hit the crossbar from just inside the Detroit blueline. But Hyman was eventually able to bring the hats down not long after when he & McDavid escaped the zone on a two-on-one, where he was able to record the hat-trick.

Hyman had a goal and three assists in his first eight games since making his season debut on Nov. 15 against Carolina after recovering from wrist surgery this past May, but he now has four goals and a helper in his last five appearances as he looks to turn a corner from his fractured wrist in last season's Western Conference Final.

"That's an impressive man right there," Skinner said. "The grit and the strength it takes mentally and physically, but more so mentally, just to fight through something like that. We all know from experience how tough it can be. And for him being out as long as he was and the type of injury, it's pretty incredible. What we saw a few months ago, and then seeing him now and he's got a Hattie. I mean, it's quite impressive.

With four assists on Thursday, McDavid is now only six points shy of 100 regular-season points in a calendar year for the eighth time in his career, with the only other player in franchise history to record eight 100-point calendar years being Wayne Gretzky (eight times).