Stars Lose To Oilers

By Shane Jones, The Sports Xchange

EDMONTON, Alberta — The Edmonton Oilers didn’t mind spreading the offense around on Tuesday.
Seven players made the scoresheet with goals for the Edmonton Oilers as they finally got some traction going during their eight-game homestand with a 7-1 victory over the Dallas Stars.
Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Benoit Pouliot, Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, David Desharnais and Patrick Maroon scored for the Oilers (36-24-9) who snapped a three-game losing streak to improve to 2-2-1 on the lengthy homestand.
“I think it’s definitely nice to score a bunch of goals but for us it’s more important that we were able to shut them down,” said Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl, who picked up a pair of assists. “They’re very capable of scoring a lot of goals and I thought we did a good job tonight of shutting them down and not giving them too many chances. I thought it was a pretty solid effort.”
“You look at the seven goals, and all the guys in on all those goals,” added Edmonton forward Milan Lucic, who also had two helpers on the night. “But the main thing is just the one goal that we gave up.”
Brett Ritchie replied for the Stars (27-32-10) who have lost three games in a row.
“It’s embarrassing,” said Stars assistant captain Patrick Sharp. “I’m embarrassed and I’d like to think my teammates are embarrassed as well.”
The Stars were coming off a 5-1 loss to San Jose, and have now allowed 17 goals in their last three games.
“I thought we kind of hit rock bottom the last game, but we went deeper tonight,” said Dallas forward Tyler Seguin. “We are going to have to find some pride here and play for each other more and work harder or it is going to be a long couple of weeks.
Pouliot broke a scoring drought that extended back to Dec. 8 to get the Oilers on the board 12 minutes into the first period, beating Stars goalie Antti Niemi with a slapper from the slot.
The Oilers increased their lead on the power play with 1:59 left in the first when Klefbom scored his 12th of the season on a long point shot.
Edmonton made it 3-0 early in the second period as Nurse beat Niemi with a deceptive wrist shot.
Dallas got on the board six minutes into the second period when Ritchie slipped a shot past Oilers goalie Cam Talbot for his 12th goal of the season.
The Oilers came flying back with two goals in less than two minutes. Desharnais scored his sixth goal of the season, followed quickly by Maroon with his 22nd. That was all for Niemi, who was pulled in favor of Kari Lehtonen.
Edmonton got two more in the third period as Nugent-Hopkins and McDavid completed the rout.

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