Oilers F Matt Hendricks suspended 3 games for boarding

Al Montoya allowed one goal on 25 shots in a 2-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday.

Letestu said it was going to be hard enough to score on red-hot Florida, and it didn’t help when a goal was taken away. Cam Talbot made 12 saves. “When you win 12 in a row, a lot of things are going well”.

The Oilers gave up three unanswered “own” goals in the third period Friday to drop a 3-2 decision to Tampa Bay and are 3-7-1 since winning their first six games of December.

They said it was boarding and that Hendricks had targeted Ekblad from a distance, looking at his numbers and driving into the back shoulder of the defenceman, propelling his head into the glass. “Tonight, we found another way to win”.

There was no penalty on the play for the hit, but Hendricks had a phone hearing with the NHL’s department of player safety on Monday, which meant any suspension would be five games or fewer. Be honest, if at the start of the season I’d have told you that one of the teams the Oilers would play on this weekend would be leading the division and would have eleven straight wins, would anyone have picked that team to be the Panthers? Out with injuries for the Oilers were Connor McDavid (collarbone), Nail Yakupov (ankle), Oscar Klefbom (finger) and Andrew Ference (undisclosed)…

Ekblad, a native of Windsor, Ontario, was the first overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft. Missing from the Panthers lineup were Steven Kampfer (lower body) and David Bolland (lower body)… The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.