Matt Savoie finished the regular season with his first NHL hat trick, helping host Edmonton steam to a 6-1 win over Vancouver Canucks on Thursday, giving the Oilers home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
With the victory in the regular-season finale, Edmonton (41-30-11, 93 points) clinched second place in the Pacific Division. The Oilers will host the third-place Anaheim Ducks in Game 1 of a best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series on Monday.
Savoie, a rookie forward paired with Connor McDavid for the past month due to Leon Draisaitl’s lower-body injury, got all three of his goals in the first period. Colton Dach added a goal and an assist, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins reached the 20-goal plateau for the seventh time in his career, and rookie Josh Samanski also scored.
McDavid had four assists while Evan Bouchard finished with three. Connor Ingram needed to stop just 11 shots for the win.
Rookie Ty Mueller got his first NHL goal for the Canucks (25-49-8, 58 points), who saw a three-game winning streak end. Vancouver finished with the worst record in the league.
Kevin Lankinen made 29 saves and assisted on Mueller’s goal.
Needing just a point to secure second place in the Pacific, the Oilers came out blazing as Samanski scored just 1:58 into the game, with an off-target shot that ricocheted in off Canucks defenseman Kirill Kudryavtsev.
From there, the period belonged to Savoie, 22. He became the second Oilers skater to get his first hat trick off three first-period goals, joining Dave Hannan, who did it on Jan. 25, 1988.
All three of Savoie’s goals came from almost the same spot, near the bottom of the faceoff circle to Lankinen’s right. His first came at 13:12, but Mueller cut the Edmonton lead to 2-1 on a breakaway at 7:50.
Savoie got a power-play goal with 5:25 to go in the period and finished the hat trick when he scored with 58 seconds left in the first.
McDavid assisted on all of Savoie’s goals and added his fourth on Nugent-Hopkins’ power-play goal with 3:14 left in the second. He recorded his second 90-assist season and secured his sixth Art Ross Trophy by leading the NHL with 138 points.
Vancouver’s 12 shots on goal were the fewest Edmonton allowed in a game this season. The Canucks posted their second-lowest total, after the April 7 game against the Vegas Golden Knights in which they had 11 in a 2-1 loss.
–Field Level Media
