GAME STORY: Oilers 3, Senators 1

OTTAWA, ON - Bust out the brooms. The Oilers completed the nine-game season series sweep of the Senators on Thursday as they gutted out a 3-1 victory at the Canadian Tire Centre.

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FIRST BLOOD

It was a common result from an uncommon source of late as the Oilers opened the scoring with a goal from their lethal power play, courtesy Kailer Yamamoto who snapped an 11-game goalless drought with his eighth of the season. Connor McDavid was trying to set up Alex Chiasson on the doorstep but the pass got knocked around, allowing Yamamoto to swoop in from the slot and bang home the loose puck at the 11-minute mark of the middle frame.

PLAY OF THE GAME

It wasn't the prettiest play of the night, but it was certainly the most important as Devin Shore made a perfect redirection on a point shot by Caleb Jones to beat Ottawa goalie Anton Forsberg and give the Oilers a 2-1 lead at 12:58 of the third period. Shore's fourth tally of the season held up as the game-winning goal.

SAVE OF THE GAME

Brady Tkachuk and Nick Paul entered the Oilers zone on a two-on-one rush with just under eight minutes to go in regulation, but Mike Smith smothered Tkachuk's hard wrist shot with Paul cutting to the net for a screen to keep the score 1-1 at the time. Less than one minute later, Shore scored the go-ahead goal for Edmonton.

TURNING POINT

Smith's clutch save on Tkachuk followed almost immediately by Shore's gritty goal was an accurate representation of Edmonton's performance as they got exceptional goaltending and a pair of hard-working tallies from Yamamoto and Shore, capped off with an empty-net dagger from Jesse Puljujarvi.

TOP PERFORMER

Smith made a season-high 39 saves for his 14th win in 20 starts, raising his save percentage to .922. There are only eight goalies who have played 10 or more games and have a higher save percentage.

FACT CHECK

Edmonton improved to 17-2-1 this season when scoring the first goal. The Oilers also became the first team to go 9-0-0 against a single opponent to begin a season since the Detroit Red Wings dominated the Boston Bruins during the 1965-66 campaign in the Original Six era.

NEXT UP

The Oilers will conclude their four-game road trip on Saturday with another Battle of Alberta in Calgary. They're still scheduled for home games against the Canucks on Monday and Wednesday, though Head Coach Dave Tippett said Thursday morning the team is not expecting to play those matchups due to Vancouver's COVID-19 outbreak.

PARTING WORDS

"Those guys do special things against every team, it seems like," Shore said of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl dominating Ottawa this season before the supporting cast provided the goals on Thursday. "We've said it all before, everyone's got a role and they're really good at theirs, so it's nice when we can do our role and help them out on the scoresheet."
"It can get repetitive playing the same team over and over again," Smith said of playing nine of their 41 games thus far against Ottawa. "Teams find ways to combat your offence and find different ways to try and score goals, but we're finding different ways to win. Give credit to their team, they're a hard team to play against now. It seems like every time we've played them they've gotten better and better. It was a close game and fortunately we got the win."
"You'd never think that you'd play a team nine times," Tippett said of the season series. "With the nine wins, if it was so easy why didn't everybody do it? We found a way to win nine times, which is great."