Oilers' potent offense strikes early, often to put away Jets

Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard each had a goal and an assist and Connor McDavid added two assists as the host Edmonton Oilers jumped out to a four-goal first-period lead and cruised to a 6-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Curtis Lazar, Matt Savoie and David Tomasek also scored and Stuart Skinner made 19 saves for Edmonton, which has won back-to-back games in regulation for the first time since Oct. 11 and 14, the second and third games of the season.

Gabriel Vilardi and Cole Koepke scored for the Jets, who were playing the second game of a back-to-back that began with a 4-1 home win over Buffalo on Friday. It was the seventh game in 11 days for the Jets, six of which were on the road.

Eric Comrie, making back-to-starts, stopped 12 of 16 shots before giving way at the start of the second period to Thomas Milic, who made 10 saves on 12 shots.

Edmonton, coming off a 9-4 victory over Seattle on Thursday that saw the Oilers score three goals in each of the three periods, picked up where it left off, scoring three times in the first 7:24.

Nugent-Hopkins started the scoring at the 3:00 mark when he jammed in a rebound of a McDavid shot inside the left post.

Draisaitl made it 2-0 with a breakaway goal 97 seconds later, taking a stretch pass from Bouchard and then roofing a backhand shot.

Savoie followed at the 7:24 mark with his third goal in two games, chipping in a rebound of a Mattias Ekholm shot from the right side of the crease.

Bouchard extended the lead to 4-0 at the 13:31 mark with a power-play goal, one-timing a shot from above the circles inside the left post.

The Oilers made it 5-0 early in the second when Lazar ripped a wrist shot from the high slot past Milic's glove side.

Winnipeg appeared to get the scoreboard midway through the period when Mark Scheifele scored on a wrist shot. However, the Oilers successfully challenged that Scheifele was offside when he entered the zone and the goal was disallowed.

The Jets cut it to 5-1 early in third period when Vilardi shoveled in a crossing pass from Scheifele inside the right post. Tomasek put the Oilers back up by five goals midway through the period when he tapped in a Trent Frederic pass. Koepke finished the scoring with a wraparound score with 4:35 to go.

--Field Level Media