GAME RECAP: Oilers 7, Red Wings 5

EDMONTON, AB - It wasn't the prettiest of victories, but it's two more important points secured for the Edmonton Oilers after defeating the Detroit Red Wings 7-5 on Tuesday night in a roller-coaster contest at Rogers Place that had plenty of ups and downs.
The Oilers took off early to a commanding lead with three goals in the opening 4:35 of the game before Detroit slowly chipped away over the second and third periods, scoring three straight goals and erasing another one-goal deficit before Warren Foegele's first tally in 12 games with just over five minutes remaining in regulation went down as the game-winner.
Evander Kane had a two-goal night as one of five Oilers with multi-point efforts, while every defenceman in Blue & Orange got on the score sheet in the victory that makes it three straight wins for the Oilers during this five-game homestand.
Mikko Koskinen made 30 saves on 35 shots to secure his fifth win in a row on home ice and 22nd win overall as the Oilers improved to 33-24-4 on the season with the victory.

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RED HOT START

The Oilers were off to the races on Tuesday night with an early 3-0 lead just 4:35 into the hockey game.
Beginning with a mad spell of possession in the Detroit zone off the opening draw, Devin Shore opened the scoring by deflecting Derek Ryan's shot from the top of the left circle just before the two-minute mark. Connor McDavid doubled the lead 1:12 later when he collected a loose rebound off Tyson Barrie's point shot and went five-hole through Thomas Greiss for his 33rd goal of the season before the netminder's night was soon ended when Zach Hyman backhanded his 20th of the campaign under the glove -- all before five minutes had even expired in the contest.
Marc Staal pulled one back for Detroit by making it a 3-1 game with a point shot through traffic before Kailer Yamamoto restored the three-goal lead after McDavid found the winger at the back post on the Oilers first opportunity with the man advantage.

SAVE OF THE GAME

Koskinen's made a couple of key glove stops on the night, but one of his biggest involvements came almost six metres from his own crease. We know because that's approximately two Koskinens in distance.
The puck was bounced off the boards up to the Oilers blueline for Vladislav Namestnikov to pick up and take in on a sure-fire breakaway opportunity, but the Russian bobbled the puck and pushed it a bit too far ahead of himself to allow Koskinen the chance to dive forward with his massive 6-foot-7 frame and deliver a sprawling poke check to break up the chance.

TURNING POINT

The Red Wings chipped, chipped and chipped away. Beginning with former Oiler Sam Gagner's second-period goal, Detroit scored three straight, including two in 34 seconds of the third period, to tie the game at four before Kane and Lucas Raymond traded goals and set us up for a crazy finish. It was Foegele's fortunate redirection off Staal that found its way through the legs of Nedeljkovic for the game-winner with 5:25 to go in regulation before Kane added his second of the game into the empty net in the last minute.

TOP PERFORMER

Evander Kane had two goals, including a far-side snipe 4:15 into the third period that put the Oilers ahead 5-4, in a team-high 23:06 of ice time for the Oilers forwards that was only second on the night to Darnell Nurse's 24:46 for Edmonton. Five different Oilers had multi-point nights on Tuesday, and every defenceman for Edmonton had a point in the victory.

PARTING WORDS

Foegele on the Oilers giving up a 4-1 lead after 20 minutes:
"I think we just got away from what was making us successful. That's playing north, behind their D, and we're making plays that we haven't been doing a lot lately. That's something we don't want to creep into our game, and we're fortunate enough that we finished it off and got the two points. But that's not something we want to do."
Foegele on getting a lucky bounce on the game-winner and breaking a streak of 12 games without a goal:
"Yeah, it's been one of those years, right? Last game, I had a real good scoring chance and it goes off the bar and you're just wondering: 'When's it ever going to go in?' It was a great forecheck by Archie there, and honestly, I was trying to feed Shoresy back door. It's one of those bounces that finally went my way this time."

Kane on what happened in the middle stretch of the game after the Oilers took a commanding lead:
"We got out to probably a perfect start if you will. We spent the first five minutes in their end, they had no shots and we had three goals, so you couldn't draw it up better than that. I think we started to get away from what was making us successful in that first five and maybe got a little too comfortable with where we're at during the game. That leaked into the second, and obviously we had a poor start to the third period. We scored some timely goals in the third there, got the lead, and were finally able to keep it."
Kane on the team's three-game win streak with two more games against the Sabres and Devils in this homestand:
"I think it's been good. We had a couple of big wins against some top teams. Obviously, we were playing a team in Detroit tonight that we couldn't take lightly, and like I said, we started out that way. We didn't take them lightly and we got some results. This week, we've got a couple more teams in similar positions like Detroit who are playing with nothing to lose and playing loose. We're going to have to learn from tonight a little bit taking that same game that we had in the first here into Thursday and Saturday afternoon."

Coach Woodcroft on a positive opening five minutes before committing errors and allowing Detroit back in the game:
"I think part of the game plan was to come out hard. I thought what we've done on this homestand is try to assert our gameplan on the other team immediately, and we accomplished that. I thought there was a little bit of a lull, and what was the root of that lull was just a lot of self-inflicted errors -- passing through people, turnovers at the offensive blueline, just things that we didn't demonstrate in the first five minutes. In the end, it's a credit to our players for finding a way to win when it got tense there."
Woodcroft on Foegele breaking a 12-game slump and the play of the Oilers third line with Derek Ryan and Devin Shore:
"I think that line in the last month or so that I've been here, I feel good about that line and about putting them in any situation; in the offensive zone, neutral zone, defensive zone, I feel good about them. We also mixed Archibald in kind of down the stretch there, and he did some good things with that group as well."
"I'm happy for Warren to get rewarded. He ended the night +3, so he's doing some things properly."