GAME RECAP: Oilers 5, Ducks 3

ANAHEIM, CA – Evander Kane led the way with his eighth-career hat trick as the Oilers rallied to defeat the Anaheim Ducks 5-3 on Friday night and get back in the win column after their 16-game streak was snapped by the Vegas Golden Knights three days prior.

Connor McDavid assisted on all three Oilers goals in the third period as the visitors erased a 3-2 deficit and cruised to victory, with Calvin Pickard providing 24 stops between the Edmonton pipes.

Kane now has five regular-season hat tricks and two more during the playoffs since he joined the Oilers on Jan. 27, 2022. He needed just 130 games to record those five regular-season trifectas, six fewer than Wayne Gretzky for the lowest number of games to record five hat tricks in franchise history.

"Nine years in the league and I didn't have a hat trick, so I was just hoping to get one at one point," said Kane, who now has 18 goals and 32 points on the year. "It's nice coming out of the break and getting on the board early and getting ready for the second half of the season."

FIRST PERIOD

The opening 20 minutes were not kind to the visitors, as they were outshot 13-9 (6-1 at the first TV timeout) and surrendered the game's first goal late in the period to take a 1-0 deficit into the break.

The Ducks lead could have been bigger as well if not for some outstanding goaltending from Pickard, who stopped a Ryan Strome breakaway and Jakob Silfverberg point-blank shot on consecutive saves around the midway mark of the period.

"We had some breakdowns and were under pressure, especially in the first period, and Picks came up with some huge saves," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "We're very happy with him. That's a couple of times he's played well in this building."

Silfverberg stayed involved later in the frame as he got into a battle with McDavid at the Anaheim blueline, with the Oilers captain ultimately taking down the Swedish forward and getting sent to the sin bin with an interference penalty.

The Oilers had gone seven consecutive games and 18 straight penalties without allowing a power-play goal, but Cam Fowler put an end to that streak with 1:20 to go in the period, zipping a wrist shot from the point that deflected off Warren Foegele's stick and past Pickard's out-stretched glove off the post and in to give Anaheim the lead.

Edmonton was also unable to convert on its lone man advantage of the opening stanza.

SECOND PERIOD

It was Kane time in the middle frame as the big winger tallied twice to get the Oilers back in the game and establish an even 2-2 score through 40 minutes.

Edmonton had a much better start to this period than the first as they were able to spend extended shifts in the Anaheim zone. One of those shifts came from the Dylan Holloway, Ryan McLeod and Foegele line, resulting in a Holloway one-timer from the high slot that John Gibson was just able to get his glove on and keep Anaheim up 1-0 at the time.

Playing back in Anaheim for just the third time as a member of a visiting team, Ducks legend Corey Perry channeled his "Worm" nickname and tied up Gibson's stick behind the net as the goalie was making a play on a dumped-in puck.

Kane collected the puck in the corner and made a give-and-go with Perry before sniping a wrist shot over the glove-side shoulder of Gibson, who was unable to recover his stick after the encounter with his former teammate Perry. Kane's 16th goal was the 1-1 equalizer with 10:49 to go in the frame.

"It's nice to have him on our side," new linemate Leon Draisaitl said of Perry. "I think he just is a master at playing the game within the game a little bit. He's done it all his life. And on top of that, he makes great plays with the puck. It was a good game for us as a line, I thought. Something to build on for sure. He's been great for us so far."

Unfortunately for Edmonton, the tie game lasted exactly 29 seconds as Strome got his revenge from the first period, slipping behind the defence, receiving a pass from rookie Leo Carlsson and waiting out Pickard on a deke for the former Oiler's seventh of the season to make it 2-1 Ducks.

Kane collected another equalizer with 7:09 remaining, though, as Brett Kulak made a nifty stretch pass up to Draisaitl entering the Anaheim zone, and the centreman dropped it back to his streaking winger for a hard low wrist shot past Gibson.

Kane's 17th of the year and second of the period had the teams knotted up again heading into the third.

THIRD PERIOD

Lukas Dostal started the third for the Ducks after Gibson exited the game with a lower-body injury.

The Oilers PK that had been so stingy for so long surrendered its second PPG against of the night at the 3:20 mark with Evan Bouchard in the box for a high stick. Strome struck again with a sharp-angle shot over the glove-side shoulder of Pickard after a setup from Anaheim's NHL All-Star representative Frank Vatrano to make it 3-2 Ducks.

About a minute and a half later, McDavid and Zach Hyman came close to tying it back up as the captain fed the team's leading goal-scorer on a two-on-one rush, but Dostal made a pristine pad save to deny Hyman's backhand deke.

That duo would make good on another chance a few minutes later, though, as McDavid weaved his way into the Ducks zone and displayed his elite vision to find Hyman cutting to the net for a tap-in to give the winger his 31st of the season.

Then it was the Oilers turn for some power-play production as McDavid made another fantastic feed, this time to Draisaitl in his one-timer wheelhouse for a blistering slapper just under the crossbar to give Edmonton its first lead of the night, 4-3 with 9:51 on the clock.

"We needed a goal in the third period and they were dialed in," Knoblauch said of the top PP unit. "They were focused and it was going to be pretty tough to stop them. You need your power play to come up big and that was the time and they delivered."

The Ducks pulled Dostal for the extra attacker with two minutes to go and Kane beat Jackson Lacombe in a race to the puck to complete his hat trick into the empty net and ice the Oilers victory.

Edmonton will wrap up the three-game road trip Saturday night against the Los Angeles Kings.