Mattias Ekholm scored the overtime winner as the Edmonton Oilers overcame a shoddy start to emerge with a 3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins on Thursday.
Just 1:04 into overtime, Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman made the initial save on Leon Draisaitl, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was there to grab the rebound and drop it back to Ekholm, who scored his fourth goal of the season.
“He (Swayman) came over pretty good, I thought,” Ekholm said after the game. “But when you get one of those chances — I don’t score overtime winners on demand, so I’ve got to try to go for top corner, and whether I miss or not, you never know as the ice is not that great at that point, so nice to see it go in, for sure.”
Draisaitl had three assists in the game to give him 900 career NHL points.
“Feels good,” Draisaitl said. “It’s a hard league and you learn a lot along the way. Every day you truly learn something new. Obviously proud of myself, but you can’t get to those milestones without teammates and guys trusting you — coaches trusting you — so a big, big thank-you goes out to everyone who obviously helped along the way.”
Zach Hyman had a goal and an assist and Connor McDavid also scored for the Oilers (19-11-2), who have won nine of their last 11 contests.
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Elias Lindholm and Mark Kastelic replied for the Bruins (17-13-4), who had a modest two-game winning streak halted.
“It looked like we were ready to go,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “I think the first goal against took the energy out of us. We were ready for the game and then you get that early goal. No fault of Stu’s. I know looks terrible, but it gets deflected and goes upstairs, so nothing much he can do on that. And then after having a strong first shift and then second shift they score — I think that took a lot of energy from us. But I think in the second and third period we just kind of simplified our game. Like it wasn’t going to be fancy, we weren’t going to get them out of position, it wasn’t like they were going to give us odd man rushes. We just had to simplify our game — work a little bit more. A perfect example of that is the game-tying goal with Connor taking the puck to the net and just pretty much willing that puck into the net.”
Stuart Skinner made 24 stops in net for the Oilers, while Swayman recorded 23 saves in a losing effort.
TAKEAWAYS
Bruins: Forward Oliver Wahlstrom made his debut for the Bruins on the third line in place of Cole Koepke after being claimed off of waivers earlier this week from the New York Islanders. Wahlstrom, who’s from the Boston area, had four points in 27 games with the Islanders this season.
Oilers: Hyman has eight goals in seven games since returning from injury. He used a full-face shield after suffering a broken nose when he took a slapshot to the face on Monday against Florida.
KEY MOMENT
The Oilers tied the game with 2:21 remaining in the third period as McDavid cut in hard on the Boston net and deked before sliding in a backhand for his 15th goal of the season. Draisaitl picked up his second assist, giving him multi-point games in seven straight games.
KEY STAT
Boston came into the game with wins in its last four visits to Edmonton, two of those coming in overtime and all four by a single goal. Edmonton hadn’t won a home game against the Bruins in over six years.
SLOPPY STARTS
It was the fifth time this season that the Oilers’ opponent scored on its first shot of the game.
UP NEXT
Bruins: Return home to face the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.
Oilers: Remain in Edmonton to face the San Jose Sharks on Saturday.
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