EDMONTON, Alberta - Patrick Maroon scored twice, Leon Draisaitl had a goal and two assists, and Connor McDavid added three assists as the Edmonton Oilers beat up on the Boston Bruins 7-4 on Thursday night.

Benoit Pouliot, Anton Slepyshev, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Milan Lucic also scored for the Oilers, who moved one point ahead of Calgary for third place in the Pacific Division.

David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, Dominic Moore, and David Krejci had a goal each for the Bruins, who had a four-game winning streak snapped.

The Oilers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on a pair of goals 59 seconds apart by Maroon, who upped his career-high goal total on the season to 24.

Edmonton got another goal three minutes later as David Desharnais hooked around the net and sent the puck in front to Pouliot, who poked it past goalie Tuukka Rask. It was Pouliot's second goal in two games after breaking a 28-game scoreless drought against Dallas on Tuesday.

Boston got one back on a power play with 7 1/2 minutes remaining in the opening frame when Marchand made a perfect pass to set up Pastrnak at the side of the net for his 31st goal of the season, and fifth in his last five games.

The Bruins made it 3-2 with two minutes to go in the first, as Marchand was left alone at the side of the net to score his 37th goal of the season and 12th in his last 11 games.

The Oilers scored again with 51 seconds remaining when Slepyshev batted the rebound of McDavid's shot out of the air and past Rask.

Edmonton made it 5-2 two minutes into the second on the power play as Drake Caggiula's pass went off Bruin forward Riley Nash's skate and into the net. Rask was replaced in the Boston net by Anton Khudobin.

Boston fought back a couple minutes later, getting a short-handed goal from Moore.

Draisaitl made it 6-3 Edmonton seven minutes into the second, picking off a pass at mid-ice and going the distance to score his 60th point, the most ever in an NHL season by a German-born player.

Edmonton added another power-play goal with five minutes left as a puck hit Lucic and got past Khudobin. It was the second game in a row that the Oilers have scored seven goals, and the first time they had done that at home since 1988.

Krejci scored on a Boston man advantage with 32 seconds left in the middle period.

NOTES: There was no scoring in the third, but a brief scare when Boston forward Matt Beleskey was hit in the right side of the head with a shot from Patrice Bergeron in the game's final minute. He was slow to get up, but skated off with the assistance of Bergeron.

UP NEXT

Bruins: Travel to play at Toronto on Sunday.

Oilers: Host Vancouver on Saturday.

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With an assist on Connor Brown's second-period goal Thursday night, William Nylander picked up his 50th point of the season.

In doing so, Nylander became the third Toronto Maple Leafs rookie to hit the 50-point plateau, joining Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. The achievement makes the Maple Leafs the first team to have three first-year players reach the milestone since the 1992-93 Winnipeg Jets.

Matthews and Marner - who picked up an assist Thursday - have 55 points, while Nylander has 50. They sit second, third, and fourth in rookie scoring, respectively, all trailing Jets forward Patrik Laine.

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No problem for the Minnesota Wild.

Despite losing their third straight game, there is no reason to believe the Wild can't get their season back on track, coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters following Thursday's 3-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

"I've seen them play great, so why wouldn't I think that they're going to fight their way out of it?" Boudreau said. "It doesn't make any sense to think that they wouldn't."

It's been a rough March for the Wild, who own a 2-6-0 showing so far. The team has also won just four of 10 contests since trading three draft choices - including this year's first-round pick - to the Arizona Coyotes for center Martin Hanzal.

The recent performances have been in stark contrast to the 41-14-6 record that Minnesota owned at the end of February, after running a 12-game win streak earlier this season. The Wild now sit three points back of the Chicago Blackhawks for top spot in the Central.

Minnesota's inability to score has been evident in its recent slump. The team has been limited to two or fewer goals in six of eight games in March.

If anything, Boudreau isn't casting blame on goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who took the loss to the Hurricanes. Afterward, Boudreau said: "He allowed two. We should be able to score three in a game."

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Maybe a few extracurriculars aren't such a bad idea, after all.

Following one of the club's most dismal displays of the season on Tuesday night against Florida, the Toronto Maple Leafs rebounded in a big way on Thursday, cruising to a 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The team received a lot of backlash after Tuesday's 7-2 shelling by the Panthers, as photos posted on Instagram showed that players - including Morgan Rielly, Tyler Bozak, Mitch Marner, Leo Komarov, and Josh Leivo - had spent Sunday fishing.

Following Thursday's game, Bozak took joy in hinting that time spent away from the rink was to thank for Toronto's effort vs. the Lightning.

"We had a lot of energy," Bozak said with a smile, according to TSN's Mark Masters. "Whenever you have a few days to bond, do some stuff outside the rink it helps. It helped us tonight."

Never a dull moment with the Maple Leafs.

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What a difference a week makes.

Seven days after TSN's Ray Ferraro tweeted an inspiring video of Craig Cunningham using a walker to make his way down a hall, the analyst shared a new one showing the former Arizona Coyotes farmhand walking purely under his own power.

Cunningham collapsed in an AHL game back in November and required emergency surgery. During the surgery, he went into cardiac arrest and had to have his left foot and part of his leg amputated.

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The Nashville Predators bested the league-leading Washington Capitals on Thursday, thanks to Viktor Arvidsson's first career overtime goal.

The 23-year-old beat Braden Holtby on a two-on-one break to seal the win and hit the 25-goal plateau in the process.

The victory was the Predators' third straight and pushed their point streak to five; the Capitals have now dropped six of their last 10.

(Video Courtesy: NHL.com)

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Arizona pride.

Prior to Thursday's contest against the Detroit Red Wings, the Arizona Coyotes sported the look of a fellow desert club, wearing Arizona Diamondbacks-style uniforms in the pregame warmup.

The Diamondbacks are in the midst of spring training. The team resumes Cactus League play Friday, with split-squad games against the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners.

Diamondbacks center fielder A.J. Pollock dropped the puck in a pregame ceremony.

As for the Coyotes, they'll try for their fourth straight win Thursday after scoring victories over the New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche, and Los Angeles Kings.

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Think Patrick Maroon likes playing with Connor McDavid?

The Edmonton Oilers teammates combined for a brilliant goal Thursday night against the Boston Bruins.

Maroon finished it off for his second tally in 59 seconds, after McDavid set it up spectacularly by redirecting Leon Draisaitl's saucer pass.

The Oilers scored three times in less than four minutes in the first period, a frame in which the teams combined to strike six times.

(Video courtesy: NHL.com)

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Build it and they may come.

Amidst his Western Canada media tour, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was in Vancouver on Thursday and spoke about the possibility of an NHL future in bordering Seattle.

"There's been a lot of talk for a long period of time about a building or not, and frankly if the city ever gets it act together on a building, then maybe there will be a reason for us to focus on it," Bettman told reporters. "I'm not saying it will happen if there is a reason, but there's no reason to focus on it in the absence of a building."

Local businessman Chris Hansen has been connected with building a new arena in the city, but with a focus on returning the NBA to Seattle. The SuperSonics left for Oklahoma City in 2008.

Seattle has often been mentioned as a new market for the NHL, and an addition in the Pacific Northwest would create a natural rival for the Canucks.

The city has a rich history of hockey. In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans won the Stanley Cup. Forty-five years later, KeyArena opened and played host to the WHL's Thunderbirds from 1985 to 2008, when the team left for nearby Kent.

In the meantime, a local Seattle group, led by Tim Leiweke, who has previously been part of both the NHL and NBA, wants to renovate KeyArena in order to accelerate the city's efforts in attracting a pro team.

Leiweke told Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times that he believes KeyArena can be brought up to par in three to four years. It's a similar time frame to the construction of the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which broke ground in 2014 and will open to the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights next season.

Still, Leiweke was quick to add Seattle will need to build its team through expansion, noting neither the NHL or NBA sees a franchise relocation on the horizon.

"We believe that there is no franchise today in the NHL or in the NBA that is in danger of being lost as an opportunity over the next few years," Lieweke told Baker. "And we believe that should Gary Bettman make a decision to expand, that if you look at the last process they just went through, it was a three- to four-year process to get that building built and to get that (Las Vegas) team up and running this next season."

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Talk about adding insult to injury.

Taylor Hall scored a beautiful one-handed deke goal early in the third period to give the New Jersey Devils a commanding 4-2 lead on Thursday.

Unfortunately for the Philadelphia Flyers, not only did the goal hurt them on the scoreboard, but netminder Steve Mason also appeared to stretch too far on the play and was forced to leave the game with an apparent lower-body injury.

The goal was Hall's 16th of the season and extended his point streak to three games.

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