Connor McDavid, Mattias Ekholm and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each had a goal and two assists for the Oilers (40-24-4), who won their third in a row and pulled within two points of the Vegas Golden Knights for first in the Pacific Division. Calvin Pickard made 29 saves.
Leon Draisaitl had his 18-game point streak, the longest in the NHL this season, end (27 points; 14 goals, 13 assists).
“Well, Leon could have had about five in the second period with the amount of chances he had and the amount of plays he made,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “But just true character, some players score when it doesn’t matter. The game’s out of hand then you score with two minutes left to pad the stats.
“You look at the streak and Leon has done none of that. Almost every single game has been a one-goal game and many nights he’s the only guy on the score sheet.”
Sean Durzi scored for Utah, (30-27-11), which has lost two of three. Karel Vejmelka allowed three goals on 14 shots before being replaced by Jaxson Stauber to start the second period. Stauber made 24 saves.
Utah is four points behind the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
“That’s not us, that’s not who we are. It’s not the performance we wanted, we’re upset,” Durzi said. “This time of year, you can’t have that, but at this time of year you have to be able to move on. We’ll have to regroup, and we have to find that mentality of moving on and putting this one in the past.
“You just can’t give up that much. ‘Vej’ stood on his head, ‘Staub’ stood on his head. They had a lot on the rush. They’re really good on the rush all year and we knew that and didn’t prevent it.”
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