GAME RECAP: Blue Jackets 6, Oilers 5

COLUMBUS, OH - The Edmonton Oilers battled back from a four-goal deficit but couldn't complete the comeback in a 6-5 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Connor McDavid added another chapter to his marvellous season. The Oilers captain scored his 47th and 48th goals of the season, both in sensational fashion, and added two assists to give him 113 points on the year and eight on the Oilers two-game road trip.
"I thought Connor played very hard and tried to do things to spur the team on, but again, it's a National Hockey League. You need all 20 people in the lineup to find ways to contribute to the win," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. "It doesn't mean you have to have your A or A-plus game every day, but we have a certain standard in terms of our detail and adherence to structure that I didn't see a lot of tonight."
Leon Draisaitl scored his 36th goal of the season in the Oilers four-goal second period, giving the German goals in his last seven contests. The streak is tied for the longest goal-scoring run of the NHL season with Kirill Kaprizov and McDavid.
Jack Roslovic had a four-point night with two goals and two assists to pace the Blue Jackets offence. Kirill Marchenko also added a pair, while Patrick Laine had a goal and two assists in the game.
Jack Campbell began the game in the Oilers crease, but finished it on the bench after allowing four goals on 14 shots. Stuart Skinner came into the game in relief, turning aside 10-of-12 Blue Jackets opportunities for only the second regulation loss for the Oilers since Jan. 9.
The Oilers will now head back to Rogers Place for a three-game home stand starting on Monday against the Boston Bruins.

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FIRST BLOOD

For the second time on the Oilers road trip, their opponent celebrated a goal within the game's first minute-and-a-half.
The Oilers coughed up the puck while in transition, leading to a Blue Jackets counter-attack the other way. The home side took advantage of an Oilers change with Johnny Gaudreau catching the defence out of position and finding Kirill Marchenko open in front of Jack Campbell for the tap-in finish.
The goal was Marchenko's 15th goal of the season, and strangely, only his 16th point, as the 22-year-old only has a single assist this season. The goal was Marchenko's second of the season against Edmonton, with the Barnaul, Russia native also lighting the lamp back on Jan. 25 at Rogers Place. The tally ended up being the game-tying goal that sent the game to overtime and allowed the Blue Jackets to pick up the 3-2 OT victory.

SECOND PERIOD SHOOTOUT

The middle 20 minutes may have been the wildest period of the Oilers season.
Columbus started off the frame by rattling off three-straight goals in the first six minutes of the second. Boone Jenner tipped his 18th of the season by Campbell on the power play, Marchenko fired a wrister from the slot for his second of the game and Patrick Laine buried his 17th of the season to give Columbus a 4-0 lead.
The onslaught resulted in Campbell being pulled from the game and replaced by Stuart Skinner. Woodcroft's goaltender swap must have sent the message he wanted, because from that moment on it was all Oilers until the end of the period.
Edmonton's comeback started innocuously enough with Warren Foegele driving the net and tucking his 11th through Joonas Korpisalo's pads for the 4-1 goal. The Oilers were given even more life when the Blue Jackets took a pair of penalties, one by Emil Bemstrom for holding and one by Erik Gudbranson for high-sticking.
Leon Draisaitl notched the 4-2 goal from his usual spot on the power play for his 36th goal of the season and his 22nd on the man advantage.

THE CONNOR MCDAVID SHOW

The Oilers completed the second period comeback and it was the Captain who showed why he is the best player in the world.
With Cody Ceci in the box, McDavid dug the puck out of a scrum in the Oilers zone before wheeling down the ice, shielding the puck from a back checking Gaudreau and slipping the puck between Korpisalo's legs for his third shorthanded goal of the season.
McDavid was far from done. Less than two minutes later, the league's leading scorer blasted a slapshot from the left circle over Korpisalo for his 48th goal of the season and a 4-4 tie in the game. The Blue Jackets four-goal lead lasted just 8:02 in the second period.

McDavid finished the night with four points, pushing his season total to 113 -- a full 32 points clear of his closest non-teammate in Nikita Kucherov. The Captain was a force on the afternoon, with seven shots on goal and five hits in his 22:50 of ice time. McDavid's physical play was a key component in sparking the four-goal middle frame comeback, but it was unfortunately not enough with Columbus notching two third-period markers to seal the game.
"Connor throwing those hits is going to get everyone to wake up," Warren Foegele said after the game. "Although, we have got to show up on time. This group, we've come back before, and we shouldn't be putting ourselves in that position."

PARTING WORDS

Head Coach Jay Woodcroft on the Oilers near comeback:
"Yeah, but not good enough. In fact, it's not just the start. I know we made it a game, mounted a comeback, and we had some people that had some good efforts, but not enough. Too many passengers today for us, and in the end, not detailed enough and we were made to pay."
Woodcroft's thought on why the Oilers got behind early:
"I think we beat ourselves today in a lot of ways. Started with our puck play on the second shift of the game. We're trying to pass through people instead of making an easy play and it ends up coming back our way and in our net. I think on the third one, we try and pass through people, it comes back down and it's in our net."
Connor McDavid on what the Blue Jackets did to give the Oilers trouble:
"They skated well. They're a fast team. They make it hard. They work, they work hard, and they did a lot of good things early on. I thought we did a good job taking over the game the last probably 30 minutes and just came up short."
McDavid on Leon Draisaitl's seven-game goal scoring streak:
"He's been playing really well. Everybody goes through stretches where they don't feel great about themselves and it seems like maybe he was feeling that way even though he was still producing, but he's come back in a big way and he's playing really well and scoring goals like he always has in this league."
McDavid on his physical play in the contest:
"Sometimes as the leader of the group, you got to do some stuff and I thought we might have been a little bit flat and I just tried to play with a little bit of an edge and I thought our group did a good job of kind of responding and got ourselves back in the game."
Warren Foegele on Oilers struggles in morning games:
"The other team is doing the same thing, right? So I don't think that's a fair excuse. We got to show up and on time, and tonight we didn't."