In Game 7, on Monday night, the Edmonton Oilers defeated the Vancouver Canucks 3-2, thanks in large part to three goals and an assist from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. This victory sent the team to the Western Conference final.
The Oilers also had two assists from Evan Bouchard and two more goals from Zach Hyman and Cody Ceci. Stuart Skinner made a total of fifteen saves.
Edmonton will play Game 1 of the series against Dallas on Thursday night in an attempt to win the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1993.
Vancouver’s goals came from Conor Garland and Filip Hronek in the third period, while Arturs Silovs made 26 saves.
Forward J.T. Miller of Vancouver stated, “They came out hungry.” “Thought they outplayed us in the first period. … Tip your cap to the Oilers.”
Following the news that leading goal scorer Brock Boeser was out with a suspected blood clotting problem, the Canucks had to rearrange their forward lines on Monday. After missing two games, Sam Lafferty and Ilya Mikheyev drew in for Game 7, with Vasily Podkolzin being scratched.
The first period belonged to Silovs, who stopped all 13 shots he faced. Skinner only had to make two saves in the first period, despite the fact that the Canucks were given their first power play of the game late in it.
In his on-ice interview, Edmonton captain Connor McDavid stated, “We know how to make it stressful.” “We gave one away, and made it interesting and they’re a great team over there, they were going to keep battling. We hung in there, though, and I was proud of the group.”
With a slap shot from the right point that beat Silovs high to the glove side at 1:16, Ceci gave his club the lead for the first time in the second period. At 5:20 of the Oilers’ first power play, Hyman scored his 11th goal of the playoffs, leading the league, by tipping Evan Bouchard’s point shot to Silovs’ stick side.
With 4:38 remaining, Nugent-Hopkins increased the advantage to 3-0 with a hard-angled shot. It was the first power-play goal in three games for Edmonton.
Nugent-Hopkins remarked, “We expect a lot of ourselves,” “But you just can’t say it, you have to go out and do it.”
