GAME RECAP: Oilers 3, Bruins 2 (OT)

EDMONTON, AB – Leon Draisaitl recorded three helpers to reach 900 career points, assisting on Mattias Ekholm's game-winner 1:04 into overtime after the Oilers battled their way back with three straight goals to defeat the Bruins 3-2 on Thursday night at Rogers Place.

"It's pretty incredible at his age and where he's at in his career to have 900 points," Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. "It's an extremely hard thing to do and a hard thing to accomplish, and you see the work he puts in every day to be able to do that."

Zach Hyman cut into Boston's lead in the second period before Connor McDavid equalized with under three minutes remaining in regulation, forcing overtime where Draisaitl achieved his milestone by picking up the secondary helper on Mattias Ekholm's decisive winner in extra time.

Draisaitl has now recorded multi-point games in seven straight outings, totalling six goals and 12 assists, while Hyman has scored eight times in his last seven games after finishing with a goal and an assist in Edmonton's come-from-behind victory on home ice.

"Yeah, it feels good. It's a hard league, and you learn a lot along the way," Draisaitl said. "Every day, you truly learn something new, so I'm proud of myself, but you can't get to those milestones without teammates and guys trusting you and coaches trusting you. So a big thank you goes out to everyone that've helped along the way."

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins finished with an assist, and goaltender Stuart Skinner made 24 saves on 26 shots.

The Oilers improved to 19-11-2 on the season and will close out their schedule before the holiday break with back-to-back games at Rogers Place this weekend against San Jose and Ottawa.

FIRST PERIOD

Centre Elias Lindholm opened the scoring for the Bruins 1:07 into the first period on a shot from the half-boards that took a slight deflection on its way through, beating Stuart Skinner under the right arm to mark the fifth time this season the Oilers have allowed a goal on their opening shot against.

"I think the first goal against took the energy out of us," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "We were ready for the game and then, you give up that early goal. It's no fault to Stu. I know it looks terrible, but it gets deflected and goes upstairs. So there's nothing much he can do about that."

The Oilers had registered one shot on goal near the eight-minute mark when Mattias Janmark put his uncontested shot from the right circle wide of Boston's net on Edmonton's best chance of the opening frame. The Bruins went up the ice right after on a breakaway for David Pastrnak, who received a flip-pass into the neutral zone that the Czech forward couldn't put past Skinner to give the Bruins a two-goal lead.

"I thought [Skinner] played a really good game and it's not easy for a goalie to let in that first shot so early," Knoblauch said. "It usually deflates a goalie and usually isn't their best, but I've seen many times with Stu that he's composed and puts together a pretty good game. Tonight, he came up with some big saves."

However, the Bruins did find a second goal before the intermission, scoring off a hard cut towards the crease by centre Mark Kastelic after he got around defenceman Troy Stecher and fired his backhand past Skinner with 2:25 remaining in the first period.

The Oilers were outshot 11-5 and trailed by two goals after 20 minutes but approached the second period with the mindset of grinding out a victory.

"I think we all felt that in the first that we were a little slow," Ekholm added. "Maybe it wasn't going to be our night, but we had a good conversation in the first intermission. We said we might not score six tonight, and we can't do that every night, but sometimes you just have to grind it out – maybe get one a period and go to overtime, and that was the case tonight."

SECOND PERIOD

'Black-eye Man' does it again.

Despite wearing a bubble visor and sporting two black eyes and a broken nose, Zach Hyman looked no worse for wear from taking Evan Bouchard's deflected shot to the face on Monday when he continued his exceptional scoring stretch to get the Oilers on the board midway through the middle frame.

"It's tough. Everyone plays through stuff, but that's a different type of scare," Draisaitl said of Hyman. "Obviously, it wasn't the first time he broke his nose, so I'm sure he's got some experience if you want to say that. But he's obviously a warrior. He'll play through anything really, so he just plays hard and plays the right way."

Hyman scored his eighth goal in his last seven games on a quick shot from the right face-off dot after it fell onto his stick following a battle along the boards involving Draisaitl, leading to the winger beating goaltender Jeremy Swayman under the right pad to make it 2-1 with 11:17 gone in the second period.

Hyman's eight goals since Dec. 5 are tied with Tampa Bay's Jake Guentzel for the most in the NHL over that span, bringing him up to 11 goals this season after he started the year with just three goals in his first 20 games.

Being described continually by his teammates as a 'warrior,' you'd think those black marks under his eyes were face paint.

"He's a warrior," Nugent-Hopkins said. "He wants to play and will play hard for us no matter what he's sporting. That's kind of our attitude in this room: we're going to play through stuff to be there for our teammates. But he did a great job and obviously, he scored a big one to get us going. He made a nice play on Connor's goal, too."

Both the Oilers and Bruins went 0-for-2 on the power play in the second period, as Edmonton was able to cut Boston's lead in half while having a strong bounce-back period defensively.

"I think we're playing good hockey right now," Nugent-Hopkins said. "I think early on, we were playing stretches of good hockey, but we kind of let it slip for too long and teams were taking advantage of it. Lately, we've been kind of back to our standard and still, even in the two games before, we probably allowed too many chances. Tonight, I thought we did a better job of eliminating those."

THIRD PERIOD

After it looked like the Bruins might escape with the two points, it was Connor McDavid who wasn't going to be denied the equalizer after the Oilers had been building their game over the final two periods to score the tying goal with 2:21 remaining in regulation.

"It definitely got better as it went along," Nugent-Hopkins said. "Obviously, I think we realized early it was going to be a simple game, and it's not going to be anything easy. We would have to work all night for it and it went right down to fifty-eight minutes. So it was a great job sticking with it."

Hyman had the puck coming over the blue line on a bad Boston change and offloaded a lateral pass to McDavid, who tucked his shoulder and drove around defenceman Nikita Zadorov before taking a few whacks at the puck in front and having it trickle through the legs of Jeremy Swayman.

Draisaitl got the secondary helper on McDavid's 15th goal of the season to give him his seventh straight multi-point game with two assists, leaving him one point shy of 900 career points heading into overtime at Rogers Place.

OVERTIME

There was no way Leon was about to let the opportunity to reach 900 career points pass as he entered the Bruins' zone on a two-on-one with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in sudden death.

After Draisaitl corralled a bouncing pass from Nugent-Hopkins and put his back-hand effort on goal, No. 93 swung through and picked up the loose puck, finding Ekholm in the slot to bury the game-winning goal over Swayman's left shoulder with 1:04 gone in overtime.

"[Swayman] came over pretty good, I thought, but when you get one of those chances – I don't score overtime winners on demand, so I gotta try to go for the top corner," Ekholm said. "Whether I miss or not, you never know with the ice. It's not that great at that point, so it's nice to see it go in for sure."

The secondary helper was Draisaitl's third assist of the game, giving the German 900 career points and 50 points on the season to go along with the NHL's goalscoring lead with 23 goals. Beyond his offensive ability, Draisaitl is getting a lot of plaudits from his teammates and coaches for his two-way game.

"Obviously, he's the sniper. He can hold on to pucks and be a very dynamic player offensively," Ekholm said. "But I think he's got as much strength going into our zone and being a real stud for us defensively while taking a lot of faceoffs.

"I think what impresses me most about his game is how there's no situation where he's not first over the boards. I feel like if there's a key moment in the game – whether we're scoring, whether we're defending, whether it's a big faceoff – he's the first one over the boards and he shows it every night.

The come-from-behind victory was Edmonton's fourth win over their last five games, featuring some high-quality opponents in Boston, Florida, Vegas, Minnesota and Tampa Bay.

"I think we're up there with those good teams, right?" Ekholm said. "That's what you got to take from this. I even think the Florida game could have gone either way, so at the end of the night, we knew coming into this last little stretch before Christmas there were going to be some high-stakes games, and we still have two more to go.

"I think so far, we've managed it really well. You can take it any way you want; it's just a stretch. But at the end of the night, I think we can compete with any team in the league."