Oilers 3 Coyotes 2 (OT)
EDMONTON — It’s only exhibition, but the Edmonton Oilers are hopeful they have worked out the kinks following the disappointment of finishing near the bottom of the standings last season.
Connor McDavid scored his second goal of the night in overtime as the Oilers continued to roll in pre-season play with a 3-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday.
“We are going in the right direction,” said Edmonton defenceman Adam Larsson. “We had some down moments in the game tonight, but overall we are starting to do things well again out there.”
McDavid put it away on a breakaway 2:38 into the overtime session. Ty Rattie picked up an assist on the play, giving him a league-leading 11 points in the pre-season.
“Ty is an offensive guy who had good offensive numbers in junior and knows how to play offence and skates well,” McDavid said. “He has been a really good compliment to (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) and I. He does a lot of good things.”
Tobias Rieder also scored for the Oilers, who are 5-1-0 in exhibition action.
Edmonton goalie Mikko Koskinen, who has been a red flag in the pre-season for allowing eight goals in his two previous appearances, made 25 saves to pick up the win.
“I’m not even close to where I want to be yet, but at least I am heading in the right way,” said the 29-year-old Finland native, who signed a US$2.5 million dollar contract in the off-season to come over from the KHL with the hopes of backing up Cam Talbot.
“That was my best game so far, but I still haven’t even come close to showing what I can do. It’s a good step, though.”
Clayton Keller and Christian Fischer replied for the Coyotes, who dropped to 3-2-1.
The Coyotes kicked off the scoring four-and-a-half minutes in as a Keller shot hit Koskinen and dribbled in for his fifth point of the pre-season.
Edmonton had eight first-period shots on Arizona goalie Antii Raanta to their opponent’s five.
The Oilers tied it up six minutes into the middle period when McDavid elected to shoot on a 2-on-1 break, notching his eighth point in three pre-season tilts.
Arizona surged back into the lead with eight minutes left in the second period when Fischer beat Koskinen with a long one-timer on the power play.
Edmonton came close to knotting it up late in the second, but an Ethan Bear point shot hit the post.
The Oilers pulled even again with a short-handed goal 35 seconds into the third when Ryan Strome made a long feed across to Rieder, who beat Raanta with a one-timer through the legs.
Notes: The Oilers have one more NHL pre-season game, hosting the Calgary Flames on Saturday. They wrap up exhibition action in Cologne, Germany against a team from that nation’s league on Oct. 3, before starting the regular season on Oct. 6 in Sweden against New Jersey. The Coyotes wrap up exhibition play on Saturday in Kelowna, B.C. against the Vancouver Canucks before kicking off the season on Thursday, Oct. 4 in Dallas… Arizona is currently without Ryan Merkley (knee), Christian Dvorak (lower body), Jakob Chychrun (knee) and Alex Galchenyuk, who was announced to be out week to week with a lower body injury earlier this week… The only current long-term injury for the Oilers is defenceman Andrej Sekera.
Shane Jones, The Canadian Press