GAME RECAP: Oilers 4, Penguins 0

EDMONTON, AB – Randy Gregg & Craig MacTavish will be enshrined in the Oilers Hall of Fame as winners on Friday night.

Shut-out winners, to be exact.

After the Oilers recorded 50 shots on Friday night, winger Viktor Arvidsson recorded his first three points in Blue & Orange by picking up three assists, while goaltender Stuart Skinner was perfect after making all 27 saves for his fifth career shutout in a 4-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Hall of Fame Night at Rogers Place.

"If you do that, you're going to get results eventually," said Mattias Ekholm, who scored on the power play in the third period. "It was just a matter of the puck going in, and at the end of the day, it sure did in a good way.

"We've just got to keep it rolling."

Vasily Podkolzin also tallied his first point with the Oilers, garnering a secondary helper on Evan Bouchard's marker that made it 2-0 in the second period, and Zach Hyman notched his 400th career point with an assist on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins' first goal of the campaign that came just 16 seconds into the final frame.

Ekholm added a power-play goal in the third period, cementing the Oilers a 4-0 victory that improves their overall record to 3-4-1.

The Oilers will hit the road on Saturday for a three-game road trip that begins Sunday at Little Caesar's Arena against the Detroit Red Wings.

FIRST PERIOD

The Oilers fired 19 shots the way of Penguins' goalie Joel Blomqvist in the opening frame and did everything but find the back of the net with their efforts – including defensively by locking down their own end and limiting the visitors to only five of their own.

"I thought a lot of things were better," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "I think it started with defensive-zone coverage. We weren't giving up very much. We weren't spending much time there early in the game, which led to us not having to defend and spending more time in the offensive zone. So I liked how we checked. We were assertive and we were playing fast."

Connor McDavid tried to find Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for an early tap-in on Edmonton's first shift that was shut down in the blue paint by the Finnish netminder, who's garnered five appearances this season for Pittsburgh with former Edmonton Oil Kings shot-stopper and Penguins' starter Tristan Jarry struggling early in the 2024-25 campaign.

Darnell Nurse had an attempt of his own on a two-on-one before the five-minute mark go high off Blomqvist's chest protector and out of play, while Mattias Ekholm was able to thwart an odd-man rush for Pittsburgh soon after, breaking up what would've been a dangerous one-timer from Lars Eller against the run of play as Stuart Skinner lunged across the crease.

Viktor Arvidsson had two of Edmonton's 19 first-period shots, with his best look at breaking his pointless streak as an Oiler coming after Leon Draisaitl found him in the slot alone two-and-a-half minutes earlier for a wide-open opportunity that Blomqvist parried away.

Near the eight-minute mark of the opening frame, the Swede found a loose puck in traffic for a clean look on goal, but couldn't beat Pittsburgh's netminder, who looked sharp after stopping all 19 shots he faced in the opening frame.

The Oilers were tracking to defeat the Penguins for the seventh straight time, outshooting them 19-5 in the opening 20 minutes after last losing to Pittsburgh on Dec. 20, 2019, when Crosby secured a 4-3 victory for the visitors in overtime.

"I thought just all around, start to finish, we played a really solid game," Stuart Skinner said. "it started with the D zone, and then from there, we were able to capitalize on some offence. And that's normally how it starts for us. When we're solid in the D zone, we get a lot of chances, and in the first period, I had five shots and everything was from the outside. Just an amazing team effort."

SECOND PERIOD

Inevitably, the Blue & Orange started to pick their spots on the pesky Pittsburgh puck-stopper, giving themselves a deserved lead while Viktor Arvidsson and Vasily Podkolzin found the scoresheet for their first points in Blue & Orange.

Zach Hyman had two amazing chances to record his first goal of the season (and point No. 400 of his career) in the middle frame's early-going before Leon Draisaitl had a break-away attempt stopped by Blomqvist, leading to the puck sitting in the crease before being cleared into the middle for Arvidsson to fire another quick shot on goal that careened off Podkolzin's leg, but not into the back of the net.

It was looking like a familiar story for the Oilers, recording 21 straight shots but having no goals to show for it, including on a three-on-one for Edmonton's second line of Arvidsson, Draisaitl and Podkolzin that was fumbled before the puck was funnelled in front for Podkolzin to direct a tip on net.

"I think often you see that happening, players get frustrated and they start cheating the game," Knoblauch said. "They haven't scored and they have to change it up and play differently and open it up more by adding in an extra pass. But I thought overall, I thought we did a pretty good job at that."

"Leon was able to break that down with the wrister off the rush there, so it's nice to see our guys, especially the way the season started, not get frustrated. They stuck with it."

Draisaitl lifted the lid off Rogers Place in celebration of Hall of Fame Night and the 10th anniversary of his first NHL goal (Oct. 24 vs. Carolina), giving the Oilers their deserved advantage on their 37th total shot through 33 minutes of action on Friday.

Blomqvist was given no chance on a perfectly-placed snap shot from the German, who fired home his fourth goal of the season from the right circle after chipping it over a Penguins defenceman's twig to open up lanes of space for himself through the neutral zone.

Arvidsson made a sneaky play along the board near Pittsburgh's bench to get it onto Draisaitl's tape, ultimately giving himself his first point in an Oilers uniform and first of three contributions on Friday with the primary helper.

Just 4:35 later, Arvidsson helped build the Oilers a multi-goal lead by feeding Evan Bouchard a pass opposite him in the offensive zone, leading to No. 2 beating Blomqvist inside the far post on a snap shot that gave Arvidsson his second assist. Podkolzin recorded his first point as an Oiler with the secondary helper.

Despite a lengthy coach's challenge for offside, the goal would stand to provide the Oilers breathing room at the second intermission with a 2-0 lead and a 37-17 shot advantage.

"To be honest, I didn't get much until kind of halfway through the second period, and all I thought was how good the goalie on the other end was doing," Stuart Skinner said. "He was incredible. He was just moving so well, making some incredible saves, so huge kudos to him and how he played and battled."

THIRD PERIOD

Nugent-Hopkins stole the puck off the stick of defenceman Kris Letang early in the third period and fired his first goal of the campaign over Blomqvist's right shoulder, increasing the lead to 3-0 for the Oilers only 16 seconds into the final stanza.

With the slightest of touches on the puck along the wall, Zach Hyman would break the schneid with his first point of the season, along with reaching the impressive career milestone of 400 points with a chippy assist that will hopefully open the floodgates for last season's 50-goal scorer.

"We also have some other players that I think are really close to breaking out," Knoblauch said. "I mentioned Arvidsson and Hyman and I thought they played a really good game tonight. They had so many scoring chances and it's only a matter of time. When you have that many chances, it's got to go in soon."

Despite facing 'only' 27 shots on Friday while Blomqvist was under siege all night in between the Pittsburgh pipes, the Oilers netminder made some high-quality saves to preserve his shutout over the final 20 minutes, standing up a wide-open chance for Erik Karlsson in the danger area with a right pad stop.

On an Oilers power play over five minutes into the third, Skinner brought the 'Stuuuuuus!' out in Rogers Place with the right pad again – this time to deny Noel Acciari on a short-handed odd-man rush for the Penguins that was critical to keeping the momentum firmly in Edmonton's favour during the final frame.

The power play leveraged their netminder's stellar saves on their next man advantage later in the period. When the first unit couldn't convert, the second unit jumped out on the ice for an offensive-zone face-off and quickly cashed in.

Arvidsson won the draw right to his countryman Mattias Ekholm, who walked the line and wristed it top shelf through traffic for the 4-0 lead with 13 minutes left in the third period, capping off the scoring in Edmonton's third victory of the season on Hall of Fame Night.

"That's the Viktor I know. He's always the hardest working out there," Ekholm said of his fellow Swede. "He'll beat you out for icings. He's a pain in the ass to play against, so I thought he had a really big night. I thought even in the circle, he won that face-off to me that was very nice to see. He's getting more and more comfortable every night."

To put the icing on the cake, Darnell Nurse dropped the gloves with Marcus Pettersson off a faceoff later in the period in defence of Arvidsson, who had his legs taken out on a previously waved-off icing call that the Swede chased down.

With time dwindling, the Oilers didn't switch off defensively despite taking a late slashing penalty from McDavid as the defence came up with a few crucial blocks and clearances that were pivotal to Skinner maintaining his shutout.

"There were some blocked shots. It was on the line a little bit," Knoblauch said.

"On our last penalty kill, they had a point-blank shot and Stu came up that big save. So we earned that shutout. But I think for Stu, obviously, that was one of his easier games to play, but he came up with some big saves. I think we had the start that we wanted to."