Ekholm scores in OT, Oilers rally past Bruins with 3 straight goals 

EDMONTON -- Mattias Ekholm scored at 1:04 of overtime for the Edmonton Oilers, who scored three straight goals to rally for a 3-2 win against the Boston Bruins at Rogers Place on Thursday.

Ekholm took a drop pass from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and scored with a one-timer in the slot to win it.

“I don’t score overtime winners on demand, so I have to go top corner whether I miss or not,” Ekholm said. “It was nice to see it go in.”

Leon Draisaitl had three assists to push his multipoint streak to seven games (six goals, 12 assists) for the Oilers (19-11-2), who have won six of their past seven.

“I didn’t like our first and our third, actually,” said Draisaitl, who reached 900 NHL points with his third assist. “It was hard to create anything, especially later on in the game.

“They defended really well tonight. Sometimes you have to win those games, too. It wasn’t pretty by any means, so we’ll take it.”

Zach Hyman had a goal and an assist, and Stuart Skinner made 24 saves for the Oilers.

“We realized early it was going to be a simple game and we were going to have to work for it,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “It was a great job sticking with it.

“Stu made some great saves when we needed him to.”

Elias Lindholm and Mark Kastelic scored, and Jeremy Swayman made 23 saves for the Bruins (17-13-4), who went 2-2-1 on a five-game road trip.

“We finished better than we started, for sure, but we can’t afford to be giving away points like that right now,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said. “We needed to be more prepared to start the road trip than we were, and it should have been better than what it was.

“But it’s good to get five (points) and come away .500. It could have been a lot worse, but it should have been better.”

Lindholm put Boston ahead 1-0 at 1:07 of the first period, sending a wrist shot from the hash marks near the left boards that clipped Draisaitl’s stick, bounced off the crossbar and over Skinner’s right shoulder.

“Great start by our team. We came out and we were committed to checking, had some good habits and details,” Bruins interim coach Joe Sacco said. “In the second period, it swung a little in their favor. I thought the third was fairly even until the end of the game, they started to push hard. It was just unfortunate we couldn’t come away with that extra point tonight.

“But we battled back on this road trip, it was a good sign for our team.”

It was the fifth time this season the Oilers have allowed a goal on their opening shot on net.

“I think the first goal against took a lot of energy out of us,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “We were ready for the game and then you get that early goal, no fault of Stu’s.

“I know it looks terrible, but it gets deflected and goes upstairs, so there’s nothing much he can do on that.”

Kastelic made it 2-0 at 17:35. He cut across the right circle, deked around Oilers defenseman Troy Stecher, and beat Skinner with a backhand from the slot.

“It’s tough, they’re a good team over there,” Kastelic said. “I think in our locker room, we want to continue going forward to keep taking it to them and we were letting them take the game to us in the second and third a little bit.

“It kind of got away from us, we didn’t stay on the attack and got back on our heels a little bit. It’s definitely something we can learn from.”

Hyman cut it to 2-1 at 11:17 of the second period with a snap shot from the right circle that squeezed between Swayman’s pads. He has five goals in the past four games after missing five games with an undisclosed injury.

Connor McDavid deked past Bruins defenseman Nakita Zadarov and tucked the puck between the legs of Swayman to tie it 2-2 at 17:39 and force overtime.

“Key plays at key moments,” Knoblauch said. “You look at tonight; we're only a couple of minutes away from losing that game and Connor makes a key play at a key moment.

“He almost wills that puck into the net.”

NOTES: Marchand became the third player in Bruins history to record an eight-game point streak (five goals, four assists) at age 36 or older. He joins Johnny Bucyk (four times; most recent was nine games in 1974-75) and Jean Ratelle (two times; most recent was eight games in 1980-81). ... McDavid pushed his point streak to seven games (three goals, 11 assists).