Oilers sweep season series from Senators with ninth win

OTTAWA-- The Edmonton Oilers swept their nine-game season series against the Ottawa Senators with a 3-1 win at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday.

"It's pretty impressive when you think about it," Oilers goalie Mike Smith said. "You don't really get that opportunity too often, and especially as well as the team on the other side has played, and how they've gotten better, it seems, every time we've played them. We just kind of found ways to get wins. It just shows the resilience of our group."
Edmonton outscored Ottawa 41-18, with none of the games requiring overtime and two decided by one goal.
"It's different. Obviously, you don't play a team that many times, or I've never done it in all my years in the NHL," Oilers coach Dave Tippett said. "There were some games that were real close, that could go either way. There were some games that I don't think their goaltending was as good as it could've been, and we took advantage of it. It's just funny how it went."
Devin Shore scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period, and Smith made 39 saves for Edmonton (25-14-2), which won here 4-2 Wednesday.
"I give Ottawa a ton of credit," Tippett said. "They played very well, they played hard. [Smith] made some real big saves for us to kind of keep us in the game, and we got a little scoring. Shore gets a big goal at the right time and we were able to push the game along. But it was a hard-fought battle."

Connor Brown extended his goal streak to six games, and Anton Forsberg made 20 saves for Ottawa (13-24-4), which has one win in its past six games.
"You just keep playing like that and you're going to win more times than not," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "We've won more games this year when we didn't play anywhere close to as well as we played tonight. That's just sometimes the way it goes."
Kailer Yamamoto scored on a loose puck in the crease on the power play to give the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 11:00 of the second period. It was his first goal since March 8.
Brown's wrist shot from the left face-off dot beat Smith five-hole to tie it 1-1 at 18:03. Brown tied Drake Batherson, Dany Heatley, Mike Fisher, Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza for the longest goal streak in Ottawa history.
Shore tipped a Caleb Jones point shot to make it 2-1 at 12:58 of the third period. Jesse Puljujarvi scored into an empty net to make it 3-1 at 19:50.
"I think we deserved that game," Ottawa forward Brady Tkachuk said. "It's frustrating. We did a lot of great things today. I thought we played our best game of the series against this team, and it just didn't go our way tonight. Definitely frustrating, and especially with our record."
With an assist on Yamamoto's goal, Connor McDavid scored 21 points (four goals, 17 assists) against the Senators this season, tied with teammate Leon Draisaitl for the most points against one team in a season among active NHL players.
"They've got the best player in the world," Tkachuk said of McDavid. "That in itself is probably our biggest challenge."
NOTE: Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was scratched. Tippett said he is day to day with an upper-body injury. ... The assist was the only point for McDavid and Draisaitl after they combined for eight Wednesday.