Ducks Beat Oilers 5-4 as Mintyukov and Sennecke Each Score Twice

The Anaheim Ducks beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-4 on Thursday night at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Pavel Mintyukov and Beckett Sennecke each scored two goals and added an assist for Anaheim, and Cutter Gauthier also scored as the Ducks won their third straight game.

Gauthier opened the scoring on the power play at 9:26 of the first period. The goal was his ninth in the past four games, and his seventh on the power play in that run. Reuters reported that Gauthier is the first player in Ducks history to score nine goals in a four-game span. Anaheim has gone 12-for-19 on the power play over the past four games, and that run showed again in Edmonton.

Mintyukov turns the game in the second period

Mintyukov tied the game 2-2 at 3:37 of the second period. He scored again at 6:15 to put Anaheim ahead 3-2. Sennecke added a goal late in the second period to make it 4-2, then scored on a power play at 1:42 of the third period to stretch the lead to 5-2. Laurent Brossoit made 23 saves to earn the win in the Anaheim net.

Edmonton got a short-handed goal and three assists from Connor McDavid, who extended his season-opening point streak to 17 games. Evan Bouchard and Leon Draisaitl each had a goal and an assist, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had two assists, and Kasperi Kapanen also scored. Matt Tomkins made 16 saves for the Oilers.

Edmonton pushes late but runs out of time

Kapanen cut the Anaheim lead to 5-3 at 16:24 of the third period. Draisaitl then scored with 45 seconds left to make it 5-4, but Edmonton could not find a tying goal in the final seconds. The loss was Edmonton's second in a row, and it ended a five-game point streak in which the Oilers had gone 3-0-2.

The game turned rough in the first period. Edmonton was charged with 36 total penalty minutes, including a game misconduct to Vasily Podkolzin, after McDavid was cross-checked into the Ducks crease by Drew Helleson near the midway mark of the first period.

Anaheim improved to 8-7-1 with the win. Edmonton fell to 11-3-3. For the Ducks, the story was balance at the top of the lineup: two goals each from Mintyukov and Sennecke, another goal from Gauthier during the hottest scoring run in team history over four games, and enough saves from Brossoit to protect a lead that shrank from three goals to one in the last four minutes.