NHL Update: Edmonton Oilers control Colorado Avalanche, 5-1
Devan Dubnyk stopped 38 shots to help the Edmonton Oilers swamp Colorado Avalanche in a 5-1 blowout at Pepsi Centre on Wednesday.
Sam Gagner, Dustin Penner and Kurtis Foster each notched a goal for Edmonton, which has won four of its previous five games. Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle both scored a goal and an assist in the victory.
"It's awesome when we have a goaltender that keeps us in it. It keeps us loose and we look forward to scoring for him. When I got that goal it felt good." said Hall.
Milan Hejduk tallied the lone goal for Colorado, which could not build on Thursday’s victory over St. Louis Blues. Brian Elliott gave up all five goals on 31 shots in the defeat.
"I felt we got the monkey off our back last night," said Hejduk. "We started good; we just could not bury one. Their power play was really good tonight."
The play got off to a rough start when Colorado defenseman Ryan O’Byrne injured his face by the blade of a passing skater. Bleeding badly from the cut, he nevertheless managed to skate off the ice and was taken to the hospital.
“He suffered a bad cut on his face,” Colorado coach Joe Sacco said. “They had to take him to get sewn up. Anytime a skate gets near the face, it’s always dangerous and scary. I’ll know more tomorrow … I’m sure he’ll be fine at the end of the day.”
Oilers got on the board with less than six minutes remaining in the opening stanza when Penner scored his 21st goal of the season on the power-play.
“Anytime you’re playing on the road, you’ve got to assume the team at home is going to come with a pretty hard push right off the bat. We’ve seen that a few times this year. You just want to stay composed. If you can weather the storm you can stay in it.
And we did a good job of weathering it and then we got that power-play opportunity capitalized on it and we didn’t look back from there.” Dubnyk said.
Gagner gave Oilers a 2-0 lead at the 7:08 mark of the middle stanza when he posted a goal on a quick shot from in front.
At 15:49 into the second frame, Edmonton took a 3-0 lead when Hall chipped in a rebound off a shot from Eberle for another power-play goal.
Avalanche made it 3-1 on a power-play goal with less than three minutes remaining in the second period, when Hejduk blasted a quick shot from the right circle that beat Oilers net-minder.
With less than nine minutes to play in the game, Edmonton extended its lead to 4-1 when Eberle hit a wrist shot from the right circle that beat Elliot.
After two minutes, Kurtis Foster tallied a goal to cap the scoring in the game.
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