Draisaitl scores late to extend point streak to 13, lift Oilers past Ducks

EDMONTON -- Leon Draisaitl scored with 1:35 left in the third period to extend his point streak to 13 games, lifting the Edmonton Oilers to a 3-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Rogers Place on Friday.

Draisaitl banked the puck in off the post stick side past Lukas Dostal after Zach Hyman redirected Darnell Nurse’s cross-ice pass to the Edmonton forward in the right face-off circle.

He has 25 points (11 goals, 14 assists) during his streak and leads the NHL with 28 goals, 21 even-strength goals and nine game-winning goals.

“I take big pride in stepping up when it is needed most,” Draisaitl said. “It is always something that is really important to me and that I pride myself in.

“Some years, it seems to go your way in certain moments and in other years it doesn’t. That is just the way this league works. But obviously I’ll take it.”

Nurse had a goal and an assist, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored for the Oilers (23-12-3), who have won two in a row. Stuart Skinner made 27 saves.

Oilers captain Connor McDavid had his 12-game point streak end (23 points; three goals, 20 assists).

“A much better team effort,” Nurse said, referring to a 5-3 loss in Anaheim on Dec. 28. “It wasn’t perfect by any means -- when you have those leads you want to make sure that you bring them home -- but when we were challenged at the end, we found a way to get that final blow.”

Brett Leason and Jackson LaCombe scored and Dostal made 23 saves for the Ducks (16-18-4), who had won three in a row after a 4-3 overtime victory against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.

“I thought we played well, it’s a great team we played against and the second of a back-to-back is tough, especially against Winnipeg in the first game,” LaCombe said. “I thought our team did a great job battling all night.

“We kind of slowed down in the second, but I thought we picked it up in the third and it was a close game. But I thought we did great.”

Nugent-Hopkins put the Oilers ahead 1-0 at 16:54 of the first period, taking a sharp-angle shot from the bottom of the left circle that deflected in off the stick of LaCombe.

Nurse made it 2-0 at 7:57 of the second period after Jeff Skinner found him in the high slot for a wrist shot that beat Dostal high stick side.

“There is no quit in this group. I think we have a lot of third-period comebacks and it just shows that everybody is going to fight until the very end,” Leason said. “Obviously, they got one late and we couldn’t do it tonight, but we competed hard, and we were a few bounces from winning this game.

“We had a few breakaways where we could have scored and a couple of posts we hit.”

Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard had a pass bounce off his stick in the offensive zone that was picked up by Leason for a breakaway before scoring five-hole on Skinner to make it 2-1 at 18:32.

“It’s disappointing. We played a heck of a period and unfortunately, we gave up that breakaway goal at the end of the second period with a minute-and-a-half left,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We were pushing, we were having a heck of a period, and a mistake gives them life, puts them back in the game.

“But there’s going to be nights like that where it just doesn’t go in, or you’re missing the net, or shots are getting blocked, or the goalies are making huge saves. I think it was a little bit of all of that tonight, but we’ve just got to stick with it.”

LaCombe tied it 2-2 on the power play at 6:53 of the third period, with Ryan Strome circling the perimeter before sending it back to him at the point for a wrist shot that found the top corner past Skinner’s glove.

“It’s a long season and we’re always taking the view that it’s a process and we have to keep staying in the process, trust the structure, trust each other and the leadership group is doing a really good job of reinforcing the messages,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “And I think in the second period, we got out of our structure a bit and we ended up losing the game in terms of the momentum in the game.

“And I think in the third we got back to it. If you just play that way every night you’re going to give yourself the best chance to win.”

NOTES: It was the 70th career game-winning goal for Draisaitl. ... Draisaitl moved ahead of Glenn Anderson for fifth on the Oilers career points list (907).