Draisaitl, McDavid goals lead Oilers past Flyers

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Edmonton has the two best scorers in the NHL. When the Oilers combine that with good defense, they are practically unbeatable.

Leon Draisaitl had a goal and two assists, Connor McDavid had a goal and an assist and Mikko Koskinen made 39 saves to lead the Edmonton Oilers to a 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night.

“Solid effort,” Draisaitl said.

Kailer Yamamoto also scored for the Oilers, who improved to 17-0-0 when scoring first. Draisaitl and McDavid are tied for the NHL point lead with 77.

“When we play that way, the way that we’ve been playing, that tight checking, teams are going to have a hard time scoring on us,” Draisaitl said.

Koskinen wasn’t really tested in his sixth career shutout, and first since Nov. 8, 2019. But the Oilers netminder did come up with some solid saves, including denying Derick Brassard from close range with 11 minutes remaining and turning away Cam Atkinson’s hard slap shot from the circle with a pad stop a little more than a minute later.

“They had some shots from outside and outside the blue line and all that kind of stuff,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “But when called upon, Mikko ... came up big. I think he’s inspiring a lot of confidence in the group and he made the right save at the right time. Happy for him.”

Draisaitl, who entered the game second in the league with 36 goals, didn’t register a shot in the Oilers’ 2-1 loss at Carolina on Sunday. He made up for that in Tuesday’s first period, notching his 37th with a wrist shot from long range on the power play that went high over Flyers goalie Carter Hart to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead with 2:19 left in the period.

McDavid recorded a secondary assist on the play, giving him 48 assists, and then