Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes overwhelmed by Edmonton Oilers superstars

Turns out the recipe for beating the defending Stanley Cup champions is pretty simple: five points from Connor McDavid (for 31 points in 10 games), two goals and three assists from Leon Draisaitl and three power-play goals.

Top heavy? Yes. Sustainable? You wouldn’t think so, but the way those two guys are going you never know.

In yet another resounding show of force from Edmonton’s top guys, the Oilers came back from 4-2 in the third period, then came back again to tie it 5-5 with 1:28 left in regulation, en route to a stunning 6-5 shootout win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

As they did in the win over Minnesota on Tuesday, where three of their four goals came with the man advantage, the Oilers demonstrated once again that their superstars are virtually unstoppable and their power play is one of the NHL’s most lethal weapons.

They needed just three seconds to score their first goal on the man advantage (Draisaitl), 44 seconds to score their second (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins) and 10 seconds to score their third (Draisaitl again).

It was cold, calculated and ruthlessly efficient.

And it was just about not enough.

Just like it was against Minnesota, the power play seemed like it would be the extent of their offence for most of Thursday’s game. At the second intermission, trailing 4-2, Edmonton had just FOUR even-strength shots on net.

And if that wasn’t tempting fate enough, they handed the Hurricanes, a team that doesn’t need any easy ones, a bunch of easy ones. Like Sebastian Aho beating Mattias Ekholm in a foot race to score 30 seconds into the middle frame, or Seth Jarvis spinning Evan Bouchard into the ice for the 3-2 goal or Jake Walman coughing the puck up behind his own net, and nobody covering Logan Stankoven in front, to make it 4-2.

But there was plenty of fight left on Edmonton’s side. The Cup champs don’t seem like the kind of team that’s going to blow a two-goal third-period lead, but the Oilers erased it in less than three minutes. McDavid scored an even-strength one-timer in the first minute and Draisaitl tied it on the power play at 2:51 and they were all square.

A late one from Carolina and an even later one from McDavid sent it to OT and then the shootout, where Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored the winner and goaltender Devon Levi stopped all three Carolina shooters.

LATE HITS — Ekholm had to be helped off the ice, shaky on his skates, after slamming his head on ice early in the third period … With the five-point night, McDavid joined Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy as the only players in NHL history to reach 30 points in 10 games.

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