GAME RECAP: Oilers 4, Rangers 3

NEW YORK, NY - When the Big Apple takes a bite out of you, sometimes, you just need to bite back.
The Edmonton Oilers completed a monumental comeback on Saturday at Madison Square Garden, erasing a three-goal deficit in the third period to earn a 4-3 victory over the New York Rangers in the final game of their three-game New York road trip that started with two defeats.
Evan Bouchard scored his first and second goals of the season to pull the Oilers back into the game before Dylan Holloway scored his first NHL goal with just over half of the third period remaining, beating reigning Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin short side to tie the game.
"It's pretty special. A cool moment," Holloway said. "Definitely a memory and a goal that I'll remember forever, so I'm just really excited."
After Tyson Barrie had his helmet ripped off by Alexis Lafreniere to draw a penalty with just under three-and-a-half minutes remaining, Leon Draisaitl completed a quick passing play with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid to seal a heroic comeback effort for the Oilers and end their Big Apple road trip with a victory.
The Oilers improved to 11-10-0 on the season heading into Monday's meeting back at Rogers Place with the Florida Panthers.
"It's a step in the right direction, but we've got to follow it up," Draisaitl said. "We can't continue to go win one, lose one, win one, lose one. Five hundred (win percentage) isn't going to get you into the playoffs, so we've got to start winning some games consistently and do it the right way. I thought that third period that we had was a great step."

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FIRST BLOOD

After the puck was transported across the blueline at the top of Edmonton's defensive zone, former James Norris Memorial Trophy winner Adam Fox dropped down the boards and found former first-overall selection Alexis Lafreniere, who had both feet in the blue paint and his stick ready to receive the pass that he one-touched into the back of the net for the 1-0 Rangers lead 2:20 into the first frame.

GET THAT PAD OUT!

After getting beat early, Campbell setted into the frame and came up with a couple sharp pad stops.
First, Campbell made a quick reaction save just outside the final five minutes of the first period with the left pad on Chris Kreider, who didn't get all of the chance but got enough to force Edmonton's netminder to come up with a snap reaction to keep it out.
Then, with 1:27 remaining, Artemi Panarin got a hold of a one-timer that was bound for the near low corner of Campbell's net, but 'Sooouuuup!'trapped it right between his right pad and the post; mere centimetres from a two-goal lead for the Rangers.

TALE OF TWO PERIOD HALVES

A second period that started off great for the Blue & Orange didn't end the same way.
The Oilers owned the first 10 minutes of the period by putting the Rangers on their heels until a couple of penalties, one to Kostin and one to Draisaitl, broke up Edmonton's momentum. Head Coach Jay Woodcroft was successful on two challenges in the opening period, with his second taking away Braden Schneider's goal with 5:26 left in the middle frame, but things turned sour soon after.

Kreider had the Rangers ahead 2-0 after putting the puck off Campbell's pad and into the net from below the goal line before the four-minute mark, and then 33 seconds later, a mad scramble in front Edmonton's net was cleaned up by Julien Gauthier to make it a three-goal hole for Edmonton through 40 minutes.
"I thought our team played a heck of a hockey game. It sounds weird," Woodcroft said. "We were down three-nothing, but I thought we played a really good second period. There were a couple of goals, there were some individual mistakes that we made on our goals against, but I thought we controlled the bulk of the play."

BOUCH TAKES A BITE

Things were beginning to look bleak for Edmonton until Evan Almighty sniped one and stepped into another with one of his trademark Bouch Bombs.
Right as a penalty to K'Andre Miller was set to expire 4:39 into the third period, the Bouch was loose at the top of the right circle, where he sniped Edmonton's first goal and his first of the campaign bar down on Shesterkin to give the Oilers life with time remaining.

Almost three minutes later, Bouchard stepped into one from the middle of the offensive zone that avoided loads of traffic on the way through and into the net past the blocked gaze of the heavily-screened Shesterkin.
"It felt great to kind of help the comeback, but I knew as a team that goals were coming for us," Bouchard said. "We kind of had our chances and just couldn't score. Luckily enough for me, it went in."

HOLLOWAY ON BROADWAY

What a time for Holloway to take the stage on Broadway with his first NHL goal.
The kid from Calgary, AB shimmy-shaked Rangers captain Jacob Trouba at the top of the circle as he entered the offensive zone before wiring a wrister short side over the pad of Shesterkin that clipped the post on its way into the net, marking Holloway's first ever tuck in the National Hockey League with just under half a period to play at Madison Square Garden.

It was one-way traffic on Broadway in the third period as Edmonton completely flipped the script on the Rangers and continued to push for the decisive goal.
"It took me a little bit, but I'm happy to get the first one out of the way," Holloway said. "It's just a great all-around effort by my line, and it was just really cool that I went in."

POWERING TO VICTORY

Barrie was battling in the corner in Edmonton's zone when Lafreniere ripped off the defender's helmet before the back official called the former first-round pick for the infraction that set up Edmonton's all-important winner.
Draisaitl was positioned to Shesterkin's ;eft, where the German completed the tic-tac-toe passing play with Nugent-Hopkins and McDavid to put the Oilers ahead into a lead with 2:02 remaining that would hold through the final minutes.

"I think it's just our mentality coming from our leadership group," Holloway said of the Oilers sticking with it. "Obviously these guys have played a ton of NHL games and know what you need to do to win, so I think in the intermission, they're telling us just to keep going, stay positive, it'll come, and then it did."

PARTING WORDS

Holloway on scoring his first NHL goal:
"Yeah, I mean, I've just been trying to establish myself and try to fill a role and I think tonight felt pretty good. Obviously playing at MSG for the first time, it's a pretty special feeling, so I've got a little adrenaline going out of the game, but I thought it was a good game. I thought our team played well even though we didn't score in the first two periods, and it kind of just came all together in the third."
Draisaitl on depth scoring contributing to the comeback win:
"That's what good teams do. That's how they win. You're not going to win with two or three guys scoring. It's not going to work that way. We need guys like that to step up every once in a while. Obviously, we know that the heavy lifting will rely on us. That's what we get paid to do. That's no different than any other team, but you need guys like that to chip in. They were great tonight."
Draisaitl on Holloway scoring his first NHL goal:
"Yeah, it's an amazing moment for him. He's obviously a kid that works extremely hard at his game. He wants to get better every single day, so it's great to see a kid like that who's got the right mindset. He wants to get better. He wants to be here and getting the first one out of the way is great. I think we're just as excited as he is, but I just told him one doesn't make a career, so he'll have to do it again."

Bouchard on the comeback win:
"Yeah, definitely not something we want to do too often, but it just shows that we do have the firepower. We have the team that perservere when we're down three-nothing or whether it's one goal down or three goals down. We have the team for the comeback."
Coach Woodcroft on depth contributions from Bouchard and Holloway:
"What I think it does is it makes us a deeper team; a harder team to check. Evan Bouchard has had a ton of chances this year. It hasn't gone his way, but the goals that went in today were shooter's goals. For him to get rewarded, I was happy for him. I think for us, you don't realize how much offence comes off his stick whether it's a good first pass or a shot from the blue line. He'd been having a tough go with getting shots blocked, but he found a way to get them on in that third period. We don't win the game without his effort. For Dylan Holloway to get his first goal, I thought that was excellent. I also thought he was a major factor in the first two goals that Bouchard scored."
Coach Woodcroft on a win like this springboarding a team to better performances ahead:
"Sure. Yeah, I am. I thought what we displayed there was character, and something we've been searching for here over the last little while has been consistency. Sometimes, you find consistency from an effort like this. I thought our effort tonight was consistent. As I said, were down three-nothing, but were very comfortable in that game. We thought we took over the game in the second period. We made a couple of plays we'd like to have back, but we're searching for consistency. So we're going to have to dig into that reservoir again come Monday night and we're about to play a lot of games in a short period of time here."