GAME RECAP: Oilers 5, Maple Leafs 2

EDMONTON, AB - The Edmonton Oilers picked up the statement victory by crushing the Toronto Maple Leafs by a 5-2 score at Rogers Place on Wednesday night.
"I think everyone was pretty dialed coming into the game. We knew it was going to be a good test," Ryan McLeod, who recorded an assist in the win, said after the game. "They picked up a ton of guys the deadline and we actually got the new move that we made, and it was a great test for us. I think we did really well and it was a fun match."
Connor McDavid continued his recent run of dominance with two goals and an assist on the night to push his league-leading point total to 118 -- just five points shy of his career high of 123 set last season. Zach Hyman continued his career-best campaign, picking up a goal and assist against his former club to givie himself 71 points on the year.
Stuart Skinner stopped 24-of-26 shots on the night to pick up his 16th victory of the season, while his cross-crease counterpart in Ilya Samsonov allowed five goals on 32 shots. Kailer Yamamoto and Klim Kostin accounted for the rest of the Oilers goals on the evening, while Mitch Marner and David Kampf scored for Toronto.
The Oilers finish their three-game homestand with a Friday night matchup against the Winnipeg Jets.

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MAGNIFICENT MCDAVID

Is Connor McDavid physically incapable of scoring goals right now?
Fresh off being named the NHL's First Star of the Month for his 23 points (9G, 14A) in 11 games during February, the Oilers Captain took all of 3:49 to get back to his scoring ways.
With freshly-minted Maple Leafs defenceman Jake McCabe in the box for slashing Philip Broberg's stick to bits, the new-look Oilers power play got to work.
McDavid and Leon Draisaitl attacked the Leafs right wing on the rush, where McDavid fed a short pass to Draisaitl for the one-timer attempt on Ilya Samonsov, who kicked the rebound out into the slot for the NHL's leading scorer to pounce on for goal 51 of his season.
The first-period tally gave McDavid a goal in five straight games, with the previous four all being two-goal performances.
The 26-year-old phenom would make all five games of the streak multi-goal affairs soon after before the end of the period. Kostin left the puck on a platter at the red line for McDavid, and the captain he did the rest. The Oilers superstar blitzed into the Leafs zone, crossed up Timothy Liljegren, and fired a quick wrister between the legs of Samsonov for his 52nd goal.
The marker made McDavid just the third player in the last 100 years to have a five game multi-goal streak, with the others being Alexander Mogilny in 1992-93 and Mario Lemieux in 1988-89.
The dynamic performance was all part of a three-point first period by the NHL's best player.

ONE 'EK' OF A DEBUT

Mattias Ekholm wasted no time making his mark as an Oiler.
Acquired on Tuesday night in a deal that sent a bevy of futures and well-liked rearguard Tyson Barrie to the Nashville Predators, the new Oilers defenceman showed why General Manager & President of Hockey Operations Ken Holland made the move.
Ekholm was a steady presence on the back end all night, breaking down cycles and defending the blue paint in front of Stuart Skinner.
"I thought for 14, he has a way about him that I think inspires confidence in the people he's on the ice with," Woodcroft said about his newest addition. "He has veteran poise. He's a huge man, defends well, moves pucks, and for just having met a few hours earlier, I thought it was a positive sign that both him and Bouch played the game that they played tonight against a really good hockey team. So there are a lot of positive signs there. He's not even in the city for eight hours or so, and he's left a good impression so far."

The defender picked up his first point while wearing the Blue & Orange by pinching in from the point and dishing the puck to Zach Hyman, who fired home his 29th of the season past his former team.
Ekholm almost set up a second Hyman goal early in the middle period, firing a long lead pass to the tape of Draisaitl, who saucered a feed to the former Maple Leafs forward. Hyman's backhand maneuvre came up just a little short after Samsonov was able to toe punt the puck out of danger.
In all, the 32-year-old defenceman played 20:50 on the night, with one assist, three hits, and a plus-2 rating.

A HEALTHY HELPING OF GOALS

With all the talk of McDavid's torrid run, the Oilers depth came up big on Wednesday night.
It was a couple of forwards working their way back into the lineup that contributed in big ways on the evening.
Yamamoto notched his sixth goal of the season, getting his stick in the lane of a Cody Ceci point shot for the deflection goal to give Edmonton a 4-1 lead on the night. The 24-year-old's had a stop-start campaign for the Oilers, missing over two months of the season due to two separate stints on the IR.
Yamamoto has been trying to work his way back into the form that saw him notch 20 goals and 21 assists in 81 games last season, but he has been playing big minutes for the Oilers in the last few games. Unfortunately, the forward missed the final minutes of the game after a predatory hit by Justin Holl behind the Leafs net.

Another player working his way back into the lineup was Kostin. The fiery fan favourite missed 12 days due to illness, making his return against the Boston Bruins earlier this week. After a performance filled with a couple hits, a couple penalties and an assist on McDavid's 50th goal, Kostin notched his 10th of the season in emphatic fashion.
To get the play started, Warren Foegele collected an errant Maple Leafs pass inside the blue line and dished to a streaking McLeod. The Oilers centre showed great patience to stick handle around a flailing TJ Brodie before finding Kostin for the 5-1 goal.

FISTS OF FURY

Despite a bevy of goals and a juiced up crowd, there was no moment louder than when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins dropped the gloves with Justin Holl.
The physical Leafs defender had already had a brief stick tussle with McDavid earlier in the night and once again got the Oilers blood boiling when he caught Yamamoto with a hit behind the Leafs net. Nugent-Hopkins said 'enough is enough', shedding his mitts and downing Holl with a trio of right hands to send the home crowd into a frenzy.
"I would say for me, I really enjoy seeing somebody get into that type of situation on behalf of a teammate that he felt was cheap shot," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said after the game. "I thought he acquitted himself really well versus a man who is bigger than him and it fired up the fanbase, it fired up the bench and it fired up the coaching staff. You can see why he's such a beloved teammate."

GOAL?

One minor smear over what was overall a stellar hockey game was a trio of questionable goal-or-no-goal situations.
The first came on the Maple Leafs opening marker, which looked to have been potentially brought into the Oilers zone offside. Ceci reacted as if the play had been offside, leading to an opportunity for David Kampf to find space and wrist a shot by Stuart Skinner for his seventh of the season.
The play looked as if the puck was played in offside, but with bodies in the way on the broadcast review angles, Woodcroft chose not to risk the coach's challenge.
Later in the second period, Evan Bouchard looked to have fired his fourth of the season by Samsonov, but the goal was immediately waived off by the officials. It was determined that McDavid had interfered with the Toronto defender, leading to a Maple Leafs power play at the end of the period.
Mitch Marner took advantage of the man advantage by wristing his 21st goal short side on Skinner to narrow the Oilers lead to 5-2.
In the third period, Edmonton would have another goal waved off after Warren Foegele poked home what he thought was his 12th goal of the season. The puck was sitting in front of Samsonov's pad, but the official lost sight of it, leading to a pre-mature whistle and a disallowed goal. The officiating crew was working a man short throughout the majority of the game after linesman Ryan Daisy left with an injury in the first period.
"Obviously, they were down to one linesman," McDavid said. "We thought we heard offside. It could have been our bench saying offside, we're not sure, but obviously we stopped playing and they didn't and it hurt us."

PARTING WORDS

Woodcroft on how the addition of Mattias Ekholm allows him to move minutes around:
"I think so, and that is not a slight on anybody that's been here, but I think when the batting order is set a certain way, everybody looks good. I thought we got good minutes from everybody who played tonight on the back end and up front, but it was nice to add someone of Ekholm's quality to the lineup."
Woodcroft on the performance of Stuart Skinner:
"He's played well. He's given us a chance to win. He gives us a chance to win most nights I would say. I thought with the birth of his son and with his illness and going to the All-Star break, we kind of managed him in the month of January. I think he played only four of 15 games, so he's back up and running now, and I think that's healthy when we have two goalies fighting for the net."
McDavid on what it's like playing the Maple Leafs:
"I think the crowd always gets into the game, but that's just noise. It's always exciting playing the Leafs. We've got a lot of Toronto connections here. We've got a lot of guys from Toronto and a lot of former Toronto players, so of course it's an easy game for us to get up for."

McDavid on playing with Ekholm for the first time and missing former teammates Jesse Puljujarvi and Tyson Barrie:
"I played with Jesse for a long time and it's sad to see him go. And obviously Tyson, he's an amazing guy and really well-liked in this room. But we all understand it's a business. And like I said, it's super exciting to bring in a guy like Ek. You saw what he could do here tonight."
McDavid on his five-game multi-goal scoring streak:
"Sometimes it just goes in. I felt like I was playing good hockey kind of before, and it just wasn't going in for me. Then you kind of get a bounce and it seems to go in for you. So it's a funny game that way."
McLeod on Nugent-Hopkins' fight:
"I loved it. He did great. I mean, you have to stick up with your teammates, and he did a great job of it. So it fired the boys up, and I think everyone's pretty pumped up for him."
Ekholm on playing with McDavid instead of against him:
"It's kind of nice to see that he doesn't just do it to you every time we play him. It's been Leon, too. He'd been lights out against us, and it just seems like you can't stop him. But just to see him do it in person, it's pretty cool. It's like nobody else, right? Those two guys can really do it offensively. It's a pleasure to sit there on the bench and watch them do their thing, and hopefully, we can chip in and contribute defensively here and maybe offensively as well to get this thing rolling."
Ekholm on being paired with Evan Bouchard:
"Really good. Just his vision and talking a lot out there. I think that was probably the biggest thing that stood out to me was his vision and the way he saw the ice, found passes, and they were always on the tape. I'm sure I've seen him before, and I know he's a really good D-man, but I was really impressed with his game."