EDMONTON, AB – The Edmonton Oilers settled for a single point on Tuesday night despite receiving two goals from Connor McDavid and 32 saves from goaltender Stuart Skinner in a 3-2 overtime defeat to the Carolina Hurricanes at Rogers Place.

The Oilers captain scored twice to give the Blue & Orange a 2-0 lead through 40 minutes before the Hurricanes responded with goals from Shayne Gostisbehere and Martin Necas in the final frame, forcing overtime where Sebastian Aho earned the visitors the extra point with a one-timer over Skinner with seven seconds remaining in sudden death.

With the loss, Edmonton falls to 2-4-1 on the season and will now look ahead to Hall of Fame Night on Friday when the Pittsburgh Penguins come into Rogers Place.

FIRST PERIOD

One of the NHL’s most dominant lines last season in Nugent-Hopkins, McDavid and Hyman were reunited on Tuesday night and provided the Oilers with the early go-ahead goal against the Canes on their second shift to set the tone for a strong opening period from the Blue & Orange.

The trio came up the ice off the opening faceoff and immediately got to work in the offensive zone, with McDavid cutting into the middle and letting go of a backhand that went wide to put the Hurricanes on high alert in the first 25 seconds of the opening frame.

Nugent-Hopkins then corralled the loose puck near the front of the visitor’s net and forced Frederik Andersen into a chest save at the near post, but it wouldn’t be long before the top line was back on the ice and opening the scoring on their next shift.

Before the five-minute mark, Nugent-Hopkins would start a quick breakout with a behind-the-back pass that caught McDavid at full speed, allowing the Oilers captain to skate through the neutral zone and take advantage of a fallen Carolina defenceman before he picked his spot at the far post with a snipe that went off the bar and in for an early 1-0 lead.

McDavid is now riding a six-game point streak of six games (2G, 5A) after picking up his second goal of the season, and with the way No. 97 was looking in the opening five minutes, it was unlikely that he’d be done there.

Edmonton’s power play showed signs of turning a corner from their 1-for-15 start to the season during their first man advantage nearly six minutes into the contest, where the top unit looked dangerous with three total shots and a lot of good looks over nearly the full two-minute infraction. More on that later as well.

Despite a strong opening period from the Oilers, the Canes would’ve felt hard done by at the intermission not to have scored, notably on two excellent chances from Jack Drury and Jack Roslovic that the two forwards somehow scraped wide despite staring at wide-open nets on both occasions.

Nonetheless, Stuart Skinner was starting to put together a strong start between the pipes, making a massive lateral save against Sebastian Aho from the right circle on Carolina’s first man advantage as one of his 13 first-period saves that helped keep Edmonton ahead by a goal through 40 minutes.

SECOND PERIOD

A deserved break-through PPG for Edmonton’s top unit doubled the Oilers lead only two-and-a-half minutes into the middle frame, and it was none other than McDavid putting the final push on the puck to get it over the goal line for his second tally of the contest.

Halfway through Edmonton’s third man advantage, Draisaitl delivered a back-hand feed to his other half of the Dynamic Duo, who then barged towards goal and put another backhand on net that he put home on the second effort by pushing it through Andersen’s right arm for the 2-0 advantage.

With two goals on Tuesday, McDavid picks up his first multi-goal performance of the season and his first since Apr. 5, 2024 against the Colorado Avalanche. It’s the 56th game of his career with two goals or more – 12 of those hat tricks – and the Oilers are 48-5-2 in games where the captain scores at least twice.

There was still a heavy workload needed from Skinner to keep the Oilers ahead, continuing just past the five-minute mark of the frame when the Edmonton-born shot-stopper scooped the puck out of mid-air in the crease to prevent Seth Jarvis from batting one in on the follow-up from Andrei Scechnikov’s fanned shot on a Carolina odd-man rush.

Later in the period’s second half on the power play, Andersen made a terrific left-pad stop on Jeff Skinner after Darnell Nurse’s effort was kicked away by the Carolina goalie to open up a shooting chance for the Edmonton winger in front.

The Oilers owned a 2-0 lead at the second intermission and need to continue their efforts into the final frame, but the Hurricanes were building wind for a third-period push.

THIRD PERIOD

What a save that would’ve been from Skinner.

The Oilers netminder did all he could to deny the Hurricanes getting on the board with an incredible windmill save on Martin Necas in the first minute of the third, but the ‘Stuuuuuuus!‘ were short-lived after Necas set up defenceman Shayne Gostisbehere just moments later to wire his fourth goal in the last four games past Skinner only 44 seconds into the final frame.

Hyman is still chasing his first point of the season and couldn’t conver just over a minute later on a two-on-one with McDavid, where the winger went to his backhand but couldn’t extend far enough past Andersen to break his early-season scoring slump.

After the halfway mark of the final frame, the Oilers second line of Viktor Arvidsson, Leon Draisaitl and Jeff Skinner failed to capitalize on two great chances for Skinner, who was set up for a scoring chance first by a Draisaitl drop pass coming into the zone before Arvidsson threw a backwards pass to the winger later in the shift for an attempt that Andersen somehow pushed away.

With 6:31 left in regulation, the Hurricanes scored off the rush with a back-door finish from Necas after the Czech skater got behind the last line of defence before opening up for a tap-in that was put onto his stick by Eric Robinson.

Through 60 minutes, the Oilers & Hurricanes were tied 2-2 and 30-30 in shots, needing overtime to settle the final point.

OVERTIME

With just seven seconds left in extra time, Sebastian Aho propelled Carolina to a comeback victory off a tiring rush up the ice that saw the Finnish forward evade attention in the left circle and open up for a one-timer from Necas that was lifted into the top echelon of Edmonton’s net.

The Oilers settled for a single point to drop their overall record to 2-4-1 as the attention turns to Hall of Fame Night at Rogers Place on Friday against the Pittsburgh Penguins.