GAME RECAP: Oilers 4, Islanders 1

EDMONTON, AB – On Monday night, it was the power play and the Blue & Orange's offensive drivers in the third period who sealed two important points and Edmonton's second straight victory.

Leon Draisaitl recorded a four-point night, Connor McDavid had a goal and assist and Zach Hyman scored the game-winning goal on the man advantage in the final frame for the Edmonton Oilers to give Head Coach Kris Knoblauch his first win behind the Oilers bench and lift the club to a 4-1 victory over the New York Islanders at Rogers Place.

"It feels amazing to get that first win," Knoblauch said. "I liked how our team played. It wasn't a perfect game and I think certainly, weren't the better team in the first half of the game. I liked how we stayed patient. We just stayed the course. We didn't take any unnecessary risks. There are definitely things that we need to tighten up and play better at, but again, I think the most important thing is we didn't get desperate where things weren't going well."

• BLOG: Knoblauch's special debut as Oilers head coach

Mathew Barzal opened the scoring for the Islanders in the first period before Draisaitl notched his sixth goal of the season to knot the Oilers and Islanders at 1-1 heading into the first intermission.

Following a scoreless second frame, Edmonton's power play came alive in the final period, converting both of their opportunities through Hyman and McDavid, who snapped a goalless drought of eight games that marked the second-longest streak of the captain's career without scoring.

Last year's Calder Trophy finalist Stuart Skinner made 32 saves for the Oilers to claim his third victory of the season, outduelling last year's Vezina Trophy runner-up Ilya Sorokin, who made 29 stops but couldn't keep the Oilers from improving their record to 4-9-1 on the season.

The Oilers host the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday night before hitting the road for a four-game road trip on the East Coast.

FIRST PERIOD

The debut of Kris Knoblauch behind the bench in Oil Country started out slowly but continued to build up as his first period as a full-time NHL coach progressed.

Just 40 seconds into the hockey game, Mathew Barzal broke the deadlock with a snap shot from between the circles that gave the Islanders the early 1-0 lead. Bo Horvat prevented the Oilers from escaping their own zone along the halfboards before the Isles centre pushed the puck to a wide-open Barzal to register his third goal and 10th point of the season with a snap shot that beat Skinner glove side.

"Oh boy, the first shift," Knoblauch said with a smirk. "Immediately, the one thing is eliminating shots from the slot in the first 20 or 30 seconds, whatever that was. They got two shots from the slot and they're unfortunate plays.

"We played it right. They had a shot. It went off our far defenceman's skate, I think it was Nurse's, and it bounced right to them and they got a good chance. That was just luck. We played it well and they got it, and then obviously the next shift, I think we could have played a little bit better. They score off a slot shot one-timer, and he's like, 'Oh, it's not going to be so easy.'

"It wasn't pretty at the beginning and we got better as the game went on, and all we can ask for is that as a team we get better each day."

Leon Draisaitl was all over the puck in the opening frame as he battled to give his new head coach the proper debut behind the bench for the Blue & Orange, and after almost sliding the equalizer around netminder Ilya Sorokinon a partial break near the seven-minute mark, the German would find the back of the net with 5:43 to go before the intermission.

Off a neutral-zone regroup, Draisaitl received a pass from Darnell Nurse before sliding the puck under New York defenceman Sebastian Aho and guiding a seeing-eye wrist shot into the far corner past Sorokin to level the game on his sixth goal of the season.

With the goal, Draisaitl maintains his point-per-game average against the Islanders with eight goals and six assists in 14 career games against the League's other blue & orange outfit.

SECOND PERIOD

The Isles outshot the Oilers 10-6 in a scoreless middle frame.

Skinner made his biggest save of the period when the puck deflected off Evan Bouchard's stick in the right corner of Edmonton's zone and right out front to Engvall, who quickly threw it on net and forced the Edmonton product into a fast glove save.

The Oilers penalty kill went 2-for-2 in the period, with one kill lasting only three seconds after Anders Lee ran interference on Derek Ryan off the draw. Conversely, the Oilers power play went 0-for-1 in the frame with only three seconds of time on the man advantage.

The Blue & Orange won 55.4 percent of the draws and out-hit the Islanders 24-18 through 40 minutes.

THIRD PERIOD

When the Blue & Orange were finally gifted a full power play, it was game over.

"After the second period we kind of joked that if were going to see [a full power play]," Knoblauch said. "I think we had maybe two seconds of a power play just because of the two power plays overlapping, but I liked it and what I really liked was how hard they worked to recover pucks. And that's what we need. We need those second and third efforts."

The Oilers scored not once, but twice with the man advantage on two opportunities in the final frame – including a slump-busting goal for captain Connor McDavid – to take full control of the game and earn their second straight victory.

"Obviously it hasn't been as successful as it was last year in the early part of this season, but a lot of it is just our guys feeling frustrated and not feeling confident," Knoblauch said. "Hopefully, tonight's the step that things are starting to go well."

No. 97 created Edmonton's go-ahead goal near the seven-and-a-half-minute mark of the third period on the power play when he flipped the puck in front for Zach Hyman to bat home his team-leading eighth goal of the season from his office in front of the opposition's net.

With the assist, McDavid avoided going four games without registering a point for what would've been the first time in his career, which is a testament to the generational talent's mid-blowing offensive efficiency.

It wasn't long before McDavid was breaking another streak when Edmonton went back to the power play a minute later when defenceman Ryan Pulock put the puck over the glass.

The captain's other half of the dynamic duo in Draisaitl put the perfect stretch pass onto his tape for a high-danger scoring chance off the rush in the second minute of the man advantage. McDavid tried his patented five-hole shot that looked like it would be frozen under Sorokin, but the puck trickled its way across the goal line after the Isles netminder repositioned himself in the crease.

"It was everything that we've been kind of missing," McDavid said. "Obviously special teams were good. We've definitely missed that third-period offence. We've been missing that, and I thought Stu played really well. He was there when we needed him."

The marker was McDavid's first goal in eight games, ending the captain's second-longest streak without a goal in his career.

"It's nice to see one go in," he said. "Obviously, offensive guys like to score goals and I'm no different."

The Islanders would pull their goalie for the extra man in the final three minutes to set up a 6-on-4, but Evander Kane would add a short-handed empty-net goal after Draisaitl worked the puck to the winger at the blue line to give No. 91 an easy tap-in to seal the 4-1 victory for the Oilers.

PARTING WORDS

Knoblauch on Dylan Holloway, who left the game during the second period and did not return:

"Obviously he didn't finish the game. I haven't talked to the medical staff and I'll find out more probably tonight, and certainly, if not tonight, tomorrow."

Knoblauch on the speed he'll be able to implement his new systems and structure:

"Yeah, it's going to be slow. I'm not sure how much we're going to change and it's difficult in the American League. In junior hockey, if you want to change, it's easy. You might have Monday to Thursday to practice – sometimes three or four days and then play on the weekend – so you can say, 'Today we're going to be doing defensive zone and you can do all the defensive zone drills to change and make that happen,' and then the next day, you can move on to the next thing and then it's so easy. Here, it's a little bit different because you're playing every second day. You're only practicing maybe 20-to-30, maybe 40 minutes depending on how that practice is going to go. So really, it's difficult to do that."

"To answer your question, I'm not sure because it's been such a whirlwind and I haven't really dove into our schedule to say, 'We can do this here, we can do this day.' And I don't know, I guess we'll be taking some time. I think we have a little more time when we go on that road trip. We got two days off between games. We'll probably address some more things then."

McDavid on the coaching changes and the group rising to the occasion to claim a victory for Knoblauch:

"Yeah, it's been a crazy couple of days. Obviously, it'll been crazy 48 hours, but unfortunately, it's something that we've gone through before and we've responded the same way, so that's obviously a good sign."

McDavid on Draisaitl's play and both of them working to get back to consistently scoring:

"Trying to work through our games. I thought he competed hard. For him, it always starts with work; for anybody, it starts with work and I thought he did a great job of getting up and down the ice, winning battles and making plays like he can. Not many better than him when he's on."