Connor Brown scored twice and Connor McDavid contributed three assists in his return to the lineup as the injury-riddled EdmontonOilersmoved within a hair of clinching a playoff spot, coming away with a narrow 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday.
“It felt like I had missed three weeks,” McDavid quipped when asked how it felt to be back in the game.
“It’s not easy, obviously. Guys are coming in — they’re obviously playing real well, quick team. Took a little bit to get into it, but we all thought it was a good win.”
Vasily Podkolzin and Viktor Arvidsson also scored for the Oilers (45-28-5), who snapped a two-game losing skid.
“He really felt that he was ready and wanted to play,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said when asked about McDavid’s return. “Especially with Nuge losing another centreman, (he) felt that he was ready and it was going to be as good as it was going to be, and he really wanted to be in the lineup tonight.”
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“The medical staff obviously felt that he was in good hands, that he was going to be safe to not create any more damage.”
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Edmonton got its superstar captain back, but was missing eight other regular players, including league-leading goal scorer Leon Draisaitl, forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, top-pairing defenceman Mattias Ekholm and starting goalie Stuart Skinner.
The Oilers would have clinched a post-season berth if the Calgary Flames lost in regulation, rather than in overtime, to the Anaheim Ducks.
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Pavel Buchnevich had a goal and two assists, while Ryan Suter and Jordan Kyrou also scored for the Blues (43-30-7), who have lost two in a row on the heels of a stellar 12-game winning streak. St. Louis is on the cusp of securing a playoff berth of its own.
Calvin Pickard made 23 stops to collect the win for theOilers, while Jordan Binnington recorded 19 saves in the loss for the Blues.
TAKEAWAYS
Blues: Forward Robert Thomas picked up a pair of assists to extend his points streak to 10 games (four goals, 18 assists), recording seven multi-point games in that stretch. Thomas leads the NHL in scoring since the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament with 37 points in 24 games, two ahead of Nikita Kucherov.
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Oilers: Arvidsson is starting to heat up at the right time. After scoring just 10 goals in his first 57 games as an Oiler this season, he now has four goals in his last six games.
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KEY MOMENT
Shortly after Darnell Nurse made a diving stick check to hamper Nathan Walker on a breakaway, McDavid took the puck all the way behind the Blues net and sent a backhand pass out front to Brown who scored his second of the game and 11th of the season with just 21 seconds left in the third period.
KEY STAT
McDavid became the seventh player in NHL history with at least five consecutive 65-assist seasons. The others are Wayne Gretzky (13), Bobby Orr (6), Guy Lafleur (6), Peter Stastny (6), Phil Esposito (5) and Adam Oates (5).
UP NEXT
Blues: Are off until Saturday when they play the Kraken in Seattle.
Oilers: Host the San Jose Sharks on Friday.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
