The Edmonton Oilers will be without suspended superstar Connor McDavid when they host the struggling Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night in the second game between the Pacific Division rivals in less than a week.
There is bad blood between the two teams after the league slapped McDavid with a three-game ban Monday for delivering a crosscheck to the head of Canucks’ agitator Conor Garland during the dying seconds of Vancouver’s 3-2 victory on Saturday night.
Vancouver’s Tyler Myers was also suspended for three games for a separate crosscheck on Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard during the incident.
The Oilers are upset that no penalty was called on Garland for holding McDavid just moments before the crosscheck took place.
“I’m just holding him; the time’s running out. I thought that was the best way for us to win a game,” Garland, who was not injured on the play, told reporters after the game.
McDavid served the first game of his suspension in a 3-2 loss to Washington on Tuesday.
Thursday night’s contest is a rematch of last season’s second-round playoff series which the Oilers won in seven games on their way to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Edmonton has now lost two straight to follow a four-game winning streak.
The Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl scored his league-leading 34th goal and added an assist to stretch his point streak to seven games in the loss to the Capitals.
Stuart Skinner allowed three goals on 14 shots and the Oilers went 0-for-3 on the power play against the Capitals, but coach Kris Knoblauch isn’t sounding the alarm.
“I think that’s one of our better games that we’ve played defensively,” Knoblauch said. “I don’t think we gave up very much, a couple off the rush, yes. We’re never going to play a perfect game, the other team is going to get scoring chances, but I don’t think there were very many tonight.”
Draisaitl gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 3:02 of the first period when he took a pass from Darnell Nurse and lifted a backhand shot past Washington goalie Logan Thompson from the low slot.
The Oilers outshot the Capitals 23-9 over the first two periods. Corey Perry also scored for Edmonton off a pass from Draisaitl.
Vancouver, which has been beset by trade speculation involving forward J.T. Miller, has lost seven of its last nine games.
The Canucks’ Quinn Hughes, the reigning Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman, has a team-best 51 points in 42 games. Miller is the next closest with 32 points.
“We got to find better consistency,” Vancouver forward Elias Pettersson said. “We had some breakdowns in the defensive and neutral zones. But it is not one issue.
“When we play with speed, we find each other and create lot of scoring chances.”
On Tuesday, the Canucks blew a 2-1 third-period lead before losing 3-2 to the Buffalo Sabres. Pettersson and Phillip Di Giuseppe scored while Thatcher Demko stopped 23 shots.
“We have got to man up,” Demko said. “I haven’t been good enough this year. I got to keep working and find that level that I know I can get to.”
–Field Level Media
