A terrible stroke of luck occurred minutes into the first period Friday in Edmonton. Colorado Avalanche backup goaltender Pavel Francouz, minding his business on the bench, was hit in the face by a deflected puck. He went down the tunnel and didn’t return to the game.

“He seems to be doing OK right now, but we’ll just see what he feels like in the morning,” coach Jared Bednar said.

Another bad bounce for Colorado when the puck hit the glass and shot right back toward goaltender Darcy Kuemper (21 saves). It caromed off the top of the net and into prime position for Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard, who batted it out of midair for the Oilers’ first lead of the game.

Much of the rest couldn’t be chalked up to luck.

“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot a lot of the time,” forward Nathan MacKinnon (1 goal, 1 assist) said.

“I feel like a lot of those goals are preventable. Most of them. I can think of three.”

Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin scored twice, but the Oilers’ Evander Kane outpaced him in a 6-3 Edmonton win that secured Colorado’s second three-game losing streak of the regular season. The other one came during the first week and a half.

The Avalanche sit second in the league in points, two behind the Florida Panthers.

Nichushkin’s first goal came on a 3-on-1 with defensemen Bowen Byram and Cale Makar. Then, 15 seconds after the Oilers went ahead 2-1, MacKinnon dropped the puck off for Nichushkin, who centered and put it inside the far post.

After killing a minute of 5-on-3 to start the second period, the Oilers took over. Kane scored on a wraparound, at the back door, and after pushing his way up the middle, respectively. Colorado defenseman Josh Manson dove to keep the puck from crossing the goal line, but too late to stop the cascade of hats.

MacKinnon scored an extra-attacker goal before Kris Russell sent the puck into the empty Colorado net.

MacKinnon’s usual linemate Mikko Rantanen missed a second straight game with an illness the team said wasn’t COVID-19.

“Hoping that another night will do him some good and that he’ll feel better in the morning by the time we’re getting on our flight heading to Winnipeg, which could make him an option,” Bednar said.

“(Erik Johnson) also is feeling better and skating today. Hopefully, he’s an option for the Winnipeg game.”

Defenseman Devon Toews and captain Gabriel Landeskog also missed the game.

“It doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup; we can be good with the puck,” MacKinnon said. “All of us are NHL-caliber players. We can make smart decisions regardless of the guys we’re missing and regardless of where we are in the standings.

“I thought we had a good game against (Washington). The last two are not good enough.”