Evander Kane & 3 Takeaways from Oilers’ 7-4 Win Over Predators

The Edmonton Oilers picked up their fifth-straight win with a convincing 7-4 victory over Nashville on Tuesday night. Leon Draisaitl went 1-4-5, Connor McDavid 2-2-4, with 8 shots on goal, and Evander Kane scored a hat trick, as Edmonton is now 7-3 on the season through 10 games played.

McDavid and Draisaitl Continue to Dominate

McDavid now has 11 goals and 11 assists for 22 points, while Draisaitl has five goals and 16 assists for 21 points. The duo is now 1-2 in NHL Scoring. The Predators must hate these two, especially Draisaitl who continues to chew them up offensively. He’s got 18 goals in the last nine games played against them.

Meanwhile, McDavid scores his 250th career NHL goal and pots two more in a season where it clearly looks like he’s placed a priority on shooting more. Just take a look at the power play where he scored his second of the night… he was determined to score and kept firing the pill until he did.

The dynamic duo was simply too much for Nashville to handle.

Oilers Took Advantage of Undisciplined Predators Team

The Predators didn’t help themselves, unable to stay out of the penalty box. Predators coach John Hynes was seen yelling “nicely” at the refs to let that the calls were 5-1 in favor of the Oilers at one point, but he neglected to mention that all of the penalties were clear infractions and the Predators dug their own hole against one of the deadliest power plays in the NHL. He was clearly trying to push for a call and while it may have worked when a clear infraction wasn’t called as Ryan McLeod was hauled down, it didn’t last and the Predators gave Edmonton multiple chances to put them away on the man advantage.

Evander Kane Gets Three

An unselfish Evander Kane finally started putting up a run of goals. Fans in Edmonton have been waiting for it. Two fantastic feeds from Draisaitl in the opening period and another pass in the dying moments to seal the deal on an empty-net goal and Kane potted three to get him right back on pace for over 30 goals.

Kane has incredible hands and he took some punishment tonight, getting hit repeatedly, but staying composed and not getting sucked into retaliating. In fact, the Oilers as a whole did a good job not getting drawn into additional penalties when it was clear they were going on the power play. The only time fans were hoping Edmonton might fight back was at the end of the game when Markus Neimelaninen and Jesse Puljujarvi both got into scrums and didn’t drop the gloves. Both laid in big hits but didn’t engage when challenged. There’s some debate about whether or not they should have.

Overall, this was a big win for the Oilers as they get back home where they were .500 to start the season. This was a big win.

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