DEV_7506

EDMONTON, AB – Picks was kickin' the whole way to earn his ninth win over his last 10 starts.

Goaltender Calvin Pickard made 26 saves in a first-star performance at Rogers Place to backstop the Edmonton Oilers to their third straight victory with a 4-2 win over the Seattle Kraken, lifting the Blue & Orange back into first place in the Pacific Division on Monday night.

With Stuart Skinner out to attend the birth of his second child, the 32-year-old came up clutch in the second period with a trio of fantastic saves that kept things at 2-2 after captain Connor McDavid marked his return from a three-game suspension early in the frame with the tying goal and his 21st of the season.

"First and foremost, it's nice playing behind such a good team – a team that knows how to win and expects to win every single night," Pickard said. "I just have to go out there and do my job and trust my teammates to do theirs, and they've been doing that."

Veteran Corey Perry notched the game-winning goal before the middle frame's midway mark on a wide-open breakaway at the end of a crazy sequence that included Pickard's three crucial stops before Mattias Ekholm iced the victory with a 200-foot empty-netter with 58 seconds on the clock in regulation to go along with the Swede's assist on McDavid's earlier marker.

Forward Mattias Janmark also ended a 37-game goalless drought in the opening frame, scoring his first goal since Nov. 3 against the Calgary Flames.

University of Alberta Bears goaltender Tyler Palmer filled the backup role for the Oilers with Stuart Skinner unavailable, while Ryan Nugent-Hopkins recorded an assist to give No. 93 a three-game point streak of three goals and two assists.

Leon Draisaitl, Darnell Nurse and Connor Brown also contributed single helpers in the victory that re-takes first place for the Oilers in the Pacific over the Vegas Golden Knights with a 32-15-3 overall record, including 22 wins over their last 29 games (22-6-1) since Nov. 21.

The Oilers will host the Detroit Red Wings at Rogers Place on Thursday before concluding their six-game homestand on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Calvin speaks about his 26-save performance against Seattle

FIRST PERIOD

Connor McDavid marked his return to the lineup from suspension almost immediately by drawing defenceman Ryker Evans into a tripping penalty on the opening shift, but the Kraken had the best chance through centre Chandler Stephenson, who flipped his shot on a short-handed breakaway high and wide over netminder Calvin Pickard.

Seattle struck first less than a minute after they returned to even strength when forward John Hayden was guided into the crease by defenceman Brett Kulak on an odd-man rush, leaving Eeli Tolvanen with a routine finish on the rebound to crack things open early in the first period.

The Oilers challenged the play for goaltender interference, which was denied upon video review to put the Kraken back on the power play with a bench minor charged to the Blue & Orange that they successfully killed off.

The Oilers penalty kill went 4-for-4 and has gone 86.7 percent (65-for-75) over a stretch of 35 games since Nov. 12, which ranks second-best in the NHL since that date.

"The last 30 or 40 games, I feel like it's been clicking almost every game," Janmark said of the penalty kill. "We've had a few games where we're not happy with it, but overall, a lot of it has been really good."

Janmark breaks his 37-game goal drought off a deflection

Janmark hadn't scored since Nov. 3, 2024 when he added an empty-net goal in a 5-3 victory over the Flames, but the Swede would get on the board with his first goal in 37 games with a fortunate deflection off a shot from Connor Brown in the left circle with 5:33 left in the opening frame.

Edmonton's third line carried the puck into the Kraken zone before Ryan Nugent-Hopkins dished a pass over to the left side for Brown, who waited patiently before firing a shot on goal that struck Janmark in the right arm to deflect it inside the right post on Seattle goalie Joey Daccord.

Nugent-Hopkins' assist extended No. 93's point streak to three games and marked his 13th career helper against the Kraken. Only Leon Draisaitl (20), Los Angeles' Kevin Fiala (14) and Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon (13) have more in NHL history against the 2021 NHL expansion side.

The Kraken would get payback with a lucky redirection of their own before the intermission to re-take the lead, having a shot from defenceman Vince Dunn pinball off McDavid as he went down to make a block before bouncing off the ice and over the right pad of Pickard with 2:19 left in the frame.

Seattle was looking to end a seven-game losing streak to the Oilers dating back to Jan. 3, 2023 and had the 2-1 lead through 20 minutes at Rogers Place.

Mattias talks about getting on the scoresheet in the 4-2 win

SECOND PERIOD

After Stu was stellar against the Sabres, it was Picks' turn to kick against the Kraken.

"I feel like the last two games haven't been our best system-wise defensively, but we try to play the same way with our goalies and I feel like they give us the same efforts."

Pickard drew the start on Monday night with Skinner out of the lineup to attend the birth of his family's second child, and all eight saves for the 32-year-old backup during the middle stanza were massive, allowing the Oilers to take a 3-2 lead into the third period off goals from Connor McDavid and Corey Perry.

"I knew it was close to kid time for him," Pickard said. "I got a text that he was heading to the hospital last night, so I went to bed preparing to play. It felt like a similar game day to the rest of them and it was nice."

Mattias Ekholm intercepted a pass in the defensive end to send Edmonton's top line of McDavid, Draisaitl and Hyman up the ice on a three-on-two rush, where Draisaitl backhanded it into the middle for the onrushing McDavid to open up a shooting chance for the captain before seeing the puck fall back into his path for him to bury the rebound while Daccord was caught going the other direction.

McDavid marked his return from a three-game suspension with his 21st goal of the season and 600th career point on home ice, which was set up by Draisaitl's 40th helper of the campaign to help the Oilers tie the game just 1:57 into the second period. The German has now recorded at least 75 points through 50 games in a season for the third time in his NHL career (77 in 2019-20 & 76 in 2022-23) and sits two back of MacKinnon for the NHL's points lead.

McDavid makes good on his rebound to tie the game at 2-2

Near the 13-minute mark of the period is when Picks really started kickin' it, starting with a terrific reaction save on a sneaky deflection from winger Olivier Bjorkstand in the slot that the netminder needed to squeeze tight between his side and left arm to keep out the Kraken's dangerous opportunity.

Pickard made another smart stop on Jaden Schwartz on the forward's open look off a give-and-go with centre Matty Beniers, but the netminder's biggest intervention less than a minute later bailed out Evan Bouchard during a crazy sequence that ended with Perry finding space behind the Kraken defence for a breakaway finish that lifted the Oilers into their first lead.

Bouchard fanned on a pass in the defensive zone that the Kraken capitalized on, but Pickard stopped the ensuing effort from defenceman Vince Dunn before denying Bjorkstand's spin-around rebound for a massive double save from the netminder.

Pickard had been stellar over his last nine starts coming into Monday night with eight victories, and his exploits against the Kraken had him trending toward another winning result thanks to Perry's breakaway goal before the intermission.

Corey speaks after scoring the game-winner against Seattle

"We're an explosive team," Pickard said. "I think there's been a lot of games where I've played this year where we're down after the first, but, we don't get discouraged. We expect to come back in games. We play really well when we're down, so after the first, it's 2:1 and it's frustrating. It's not the start you're looking for, but it was right there for us. A big goal right at the start of the second and we got the lead and didn't look back."

After Pickard's crucial stops, the Kraken were caught sleeping in Edmonton's zone when Corey Perry was wide open at the far blue line to accept a stretch pass from Darnell Nurse, having no pressure behind him when the veteran called Joey Daccord's bluff with the poke check on the one-on-one and fired his effort five-hole for his ninth goal of his career

"A great change by Leo," Perry said. "I came on the ice late and Doc had it with his eyes up and made a great play. [The poke check] probably helped me because he baited first, and that's kind of what I like is watching what he's doing. He made the poke-check move right away, and I just threw it five-hole."

The Oilers took a 3-2 lead into the final period with a 23-20 advantage in shots, but plenty of Seattle's were of the A-Grade variety that Picks had parried away with some heavy lifting for his team in the middle stanza.

Perry goes five-hole on a breakaway for a 3-2 Oilers lead

THIRD PERIOD

After shoring up defensively during the third period in defence of Pickard and killing off another penalty early, the Oilers would take their insurance however they could get it.

"Picks made some huge saves at the end to keep us in it, especially for us to take the lead in the second period," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "He made a couple of big saves, and then we go down and score shortly after that. I think tonight, we just played well enough to win."

Mattias Ekholm made an attempt at clearing the puck from the defensive zone that caught a piece of Matty Beniers' stick and went all the way down the ice and into the yawning Kraken cage, finishing off a 4-2 victory for the Oilers on the Swede's unassisted marker that was his 14th goal of the season.

With a goal and an assist, Ekholm now sits in seventh among all-time for franchise defencemen with 80-plus points within their first 150 games as an Oiler (81) behind Paul Coffey (118), Tyson Barrie (101), Risto Siltanen (97), Charlie Huddy (89), Dave Manson (88) and Igor Kravchuk (84).

The Oilers fought off the Kraken to win their third straight game and re-take first place in the Pacific Division with a 32-15-3 record as they look ahead now to hosting the Detroit Red Wings at Rogers Place on Thursday night.

"We're playing north and playing with the puck, and we had some shifts where we were cycling the puck well and moving around and getting shots. That's our game," Perry said. "It's when we go rogue and go off script is when we tend to start losing things, and I thought tonight we did everything we needed to do to get two points."

Ekholm ices the Oilers win with a long-distance empty-netter