Oilers laud red-hot Nugent-Hopkins: 'Best player in the series'

Edmonton Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins drew praise from his teammates amid a red-hot run of form in the Western Conference Final.

"He touches every part of the game you can think of," Oilers' star forward Leon Draisaitl said. "(Nugent-Hopkins), in a way, sacrifices a lot of offense throughout the year for doing everything the right way and being in the right position and doing all the little things that a lot of guys don't want to do. He prioritizes that. We all know that he's capable of putting up numbers and scoring and making great plays.

"Right now, it's everything at once, it's clicking. He's been the best player in the series."

Nugent-Hopkins has nine points against the Dallas Stars. He's the first player in 35 years to have four straight multi-point games to start a conference finals. Cam Neely and Craig Janney did so in 1990 with the Boston Bruins.

Wayne Gretzky is the only player in franchise history to score more points through four games in the conference finals.

The Oilers are up 6-0 in Nugent-Hopkins' minutes at five-on-five in the series, and Edmonton has outshot the Stars 36-19 with him on the ice, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Oilers forward Corey Perry lauded Nugent-Hopkins' work ethic and commitment to two-way play.

"He's done everything that you can ask," Perry said. "He's put in the work, and he's getting rewarded. Everything he's touching, he's making good plays. He plays on both sides of the puck. He works as hard as anybody on the ice. What he's doing out there just helps us out a lot."

Nugent-Hopkins is the longest-tenured Oiler on the roster, having been drafted first overall in 2011. He acknowledged the long road to get to this point.

"When I first came in, we were obviously a struggling team, but you never really felt the negativity too much in the city," Nugent-Hopkins said. "There was still a lot of positivity and a lot of hope. And now, we're one win away from going to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals. This is as exciting as it gets for us as a team and also for the fan base that's stuck around for a lot of years."