GAME RECAP: Oilers 5, Canucks 1 (Game 6)

EDMONTON, AB – Hold on tight, Oil Country.

There will be a Game 7.

The Oilers staved off elimination from the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday with a 5-1 victory over the Canucks in Game 6 at Rogers Place, receiving three points each from Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in a full-team effort that forces a Game 7 back in Vancouver on Monday with the series knotted at three games apiece.

"I thought the boys were ready from the start," Dylan Holloway said. "We knew what was at stake tonight, so probably a little bit of nerves, but once we got settled in, we played our game, rolled all four lines and never looked back."

Holloway burned past Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes to score a beautiful opening goal in the first period, notching the first of five at even strength for Edmonton in Game 6 before Zach Hyman restored their lead a period later, erasing Nils Hoglander's tying goal that arrived two minutes after the Oilers went ahead in the opening frame.

"I think we just played fast," Hyman said. "I think when we're playing fast, we're getting more opportunities and more looks at their net and I thought we got some good looks off the cycle, too. We've gotten looks all series, but I think we bore down on our chances and made good on them."

Following Hyman's league-leading 10th goal of the postseason, Edmonton scored four unanswered goals and limited Vancouver to only 11 shots over the final two periods, with Stuart Skinner bouncing back in his return to the Oilers' crease with 14 saves to claim the victory.

The Oilers were led offensively by their top players all evening, with Evander Kane wrapping up the scoring with his fourth goal of the playoffs on a quick shot that came from a clean face-off win by Leon Draisaitl with less than seven minutes left in the third period.

Game 7 will be at Rogers Arena in Vancouver on Monday, with puck drop slated for 7:00 pm MT.

"This group has been through lots of adversity throughout the season, and even though we have a lot of skill, we're hard workers," defenceman Vincent Desharnais said. "If we can match their compete level, I think Game 7 will be a good one for us."

FIRST PERIOD

Where there's a will, there's a Hollo-way.

With the Oilers in need of strong individual efforts from every player to help keep their season alive, Holloway was the first to rise to the occasion with a terrific opening goal after he burned two of Vancouver's best in Pettersson and Hughes to fire up Edmonton's bench and the fans inside Rogers Place.

"That was an electric goal," defenceman Darnell Nurse said. "I think the way the building lit up, it feeds into the bench and our game, and he's made some huge plays throughout the playoffs so far."

Draisaitl made the pass up ice to Holloway in the neutral zone where he shook off Pettersson and burned past the pinching Hughes, cutting to the inside and attacking Vancouver's with speed before avoiding the stick of Filip Hronek and sliding his shot through the five-hole of Arturs Silovs for a McDavid-esque opening goal, but this one had Hollywood written all over it.

"I think they were kind of cheating, thinking that Leo was gonna pick up the puck and I was able to gain some speed," Holloway said. "He made a nice play to me and then I caught their D flat-footed there, so I was happy for that one to go in and it felt pretty good."

"I've had some nice ones in my day, but I don't know if I'd compare myself to Connor," Holloway joked. "That one definitely felt good."

The tally was Holloway's third of the playoffs and first goal since scoring twice in Game 2 of the First Round against the Los Angeles Kings. To his teammates, it was nothing but deserved with how he's been hounding pucks and creating offence over the last two games for his team.

"I've been all over him for two or three days saying that he's going to score, that it's right there and that he's going to keep shooting," Desharnais said. "And I'm not going to lie, I didn't think it was going to be that nice of a goal. I thought it was going to be a little shot or something, but he's such a good player. He's so talented."

Edmonton's lead would only last two minutes after Nurse and Desharnais didn't pick up Hoglander around the goalmouth area after he crept in and accepted Pettersson's feed from below the goal line. The all-Swedish second line for the Canucks got the equalizer when Hoglander took two whacks at the puck and put it past Skinner on the second try, making it 1-1 with 9:57 left in the opening frame.

At the very end of the first period – down to the final tenths of a second – Bouchard looked to have given the Oilers a 2-1 lead when he powered a slap shot through traffic and past Silovs, with McDavid falling over the Canucks' netminder after getting ridden into the crease by Teddy Blueger.

The referee waved it off immediately for goaltender interference before Head Coach Kris Knoblauch took a long look at it on the monitor and decided against challenging. The bench boss said post-game that he didn't have a good feeling about risking the delay of game after watching the previous night's Game 6 between Dallas and Colorado, when Mason Marchment looked to have originally won it for Dallas in overtime despite there being marginal contact in the crease to wave the goal off.

"I saw last night, and there was no way they were going to overturn that one," Knoblauch said.

SECOND PERIOD

When your team's facing elimination, keep your foot on the gas and don't let off.

The Oilers confidently navigated the second period to take a two-goal lead into the final frame off tallies from Hyman and Bouchard that came over a 4:06 span near the midway mark of the period.

"I thought we played faster, we played cleaner, were better with the puck and better coming through the neutral zone," McDavid said. "We did a great job of getting on top of them on the forecheck and keeping pucks alive."

Forward Sam Carrick was inserted into the lineup for the first time this round in place of Corey Perry and made his mark early in the second period by drawing a holding penalty against Nikita Zadorov for a power play that went unconverted, along with 1:05 of five-on-three later in the frame for Edmonton where they failed to make any headway with the man advantage, going 0-for-3 in the period.

"Loved him," Knoblauch said of Carrick's play on Saturday. "I thought he was huge and it was tough making that lineup change. It's been tough keeping Sam out of the lineup as long as we have, and our fourth line had been playing so well with Janmark, DR and Brown. We trusted them in a lot of key situations and we just moved our lines around a little bit. With Sammy, it didn't drop off at all, and he was very key on the face-offs. he won a lot of defensive-zone faceoffs."

Edmonton continued to deliver at even strength when Hyman scraped a shot under the left arm of Silovs at 7:14 of the period after McDavid rounded the net and made his winger corral the puck with his skate in the slot after delivering the pass into his feet.

It was Hyman's NHL-leading 10th goal of the playoffs, giving the Oilers a 2-1 lead while McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins picked up their first of two helpers in the frame.

"The team that we're playing in Vancouver has a good even-strength game," Nurse said. "So for us, getting our five-on-five game going and playing strong throughout the night was huge."

The Oilers' top line continued to buzz and had the Canucks pinned down in their own zone on a long shift nearly four minutes later when Bouchard detonated a bomb of a slapshot that beat Silovs clean off the far post, padding Edmonton's lead with his league-high fifth goal and 17th point of the playoffs among all defencemen.

Edmonton's top players were all finding ways to have a major impact on the game, with their top-six forwards and top-line defenders combining to produce three goals and six assists in the opening 40 minutes.

The Oilers' penalty kill provided a crucial stop on Vancouver's two-man advantage for 1:04 in the final three minutes of the frame, with Hughes striking the post as the Canucks' best chance on the power play and Skinner making two saves at an important moment in the game.

Skinner received the start on Saturday despite Calvin Pickard performing admirably in Edmonton's last two games, and going back to their number-one netminder was a big call that paid off for the Blue & Orange on Saturday.

"I think the big part of that five-on-three was Skinner. I think he was solid," Desharnais said. "Every save he made on that five-on-three, he made it look pretty easy... I don't think he had many shots, but the shots he had were grade-A and a lot were screen shots, which are pretty hard to save for a goalie. I'm not surprised."

"The way he played tonight, he's our goalie, he's great and I think he proved tonight that we can trust him."

Coming up clutch on the kill was also Nugent-Hopkins, who won two separate defensive-zone draws on the five-on-three scenario to go along with his strong offensive performance overall.

"People probably look at the score sheet and say he had a great night. He scored and had two assists," Hyman said. "But I think the five-on-three penalty kill, the faceoff, those are huge things. It doesn't matter what you're producing if you do that, and obviously, he touches all aspects – power play, penalty kill, five on five – and he's out there in the last minute of a game whether you're up or down.

"So I mean, what more can you ask for?"

THIRD PERIOD

Edmonton's best players continued to produce in the final frame, extending their team's lead to 4-1 just 3:25 into the period when McDavid centred a pass off the rush to Nugent-Hopkins that was poked through under the sliding Silovs, who was left out to dry by his defenceman on the play.

"Yeah, they were great. They were amazing," Desharnais said of Edmonton's superstars. "But other than points, little hits and dumping the puck at the right time instead of trying to make a play, that's playoff hockey and we need all four lines to play like that at times. It's awesome to see guys finish their hits, and they're leaders and proved it tonight."

The trio of McDavid, Bouchard and Nugent-Hopkins all had a part to play on the goal to pick up their third points of the contest as the Canucks had nothing to offer for Edmonton's domination in Game 6 with a three-goal disadvantage that soon became four before the final buzzer.

Draisaitl won an offensive-zone draw inside the final seven minutes of regulation right to the stick of Kane, who had all the time he needed to line up his shot and beat SIlovs cleanly over the left pad for a 5-1 Oilers lead, marking back-to-back games with a goal for the Vancouver-born winger after picking up his fourth goal of the playoffs.

Draisaitl's assist marked his 100th career playoff point in his 60th game, giving him the second-best points per game in NHL playoff history that's only second to Wayne Gretzky – exemplifying just how dominant Draisaitl has been during the business end of the season.

"He's been doing it since our first year in the playoffs in 2017," McDavid said. "He was great then, and he's been great every chance we've had in the playoffs since. He's somebody that brings his game to a whole other level. I've said before that he's one of the best players in the world, and on a lot of nights, he is the best player in the world.

"In the playoffs, he's been nothing but great."

The Canucks finished the night with only 15 shots, with Skinner bouncing back in the crease to pick up the victory as the Oilers evened the series with a rousing effort on home ice.

"I think we all are pumped about the way we played, but [we need to have a] short memory," Holloway said, "Momentum doesn't really carry over game to game. We've got to focus on the next game, get off to a good start and just play the way we can."