PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Bruins

The Edmonton Oilers open a five-game homestand and six of their next seven games at Rogers Place when they host the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night.

You can watch the game on Sportsnet at 8:00 p.m. MT or listen live on the Oilers Radio Network, including 630 CHED.

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EDMONTON, AB – The Edmonton Oilers welcome the Boston Bruins to Rogers Place on Wednesday night looking to make it three straight victories after their 6-3 comeback win over the Arizona Coyotes at Mullett Arena on Monday afternoon.

Wednesday’s meeting will be the first game of a five-game homestand for the Oilers and the first of two meetings against the Bruins this season. Edmonton and Boston will meet at TD Garden early next month on March 8 to close out the season series.

Edmonton earned back-to-back wins on Monday for the first time since the start of the All-Star Break, having gone 4-3-0 in that span while continuing their trend of not losing two games in a row since mid-December.

"We talked about how we didn't have back-to-back wins for about three weeks,” Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. “One of those weeks was the All-Star Break, but good teams are able to put together long streaks, and good teams also don't put long losing streaks together.

“Winning back-to-back feels good and we just want to build on that."

The Oilers trailed 3-2 to the Coyotes after 40 minutes on Monday before a shuffling to their lines by the coaching staff in the second intermission helped sparked a four-goal third period that was led by Evander Kane’s two goals and pairs of assists from Leon Draisaitl, Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard.

"I don't want to get in the habit of changing things up, but I think the way we got outplayed in the second period, we were slow to pucks. They really carried the play in the second period, and we just needed a little something to change things up."

Draisaitl finished with a goal and two assists playing out the final period with Kane and Ryan McLeod, who had the primary helper on Kane’s second goal, and Zach Hyman scored the game-winner alongside Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

“We were a little slow in the second period, spent a little bit too much time in our own end, and in order to win this hockey game we knew we had to come out and play,” Kane said. “I thought we did a great job of getting on top of them a little quicker and being a little bit more connected on our forecheck, and it led us to scoring opportunities.”

After sitting too far back defensively during the middle frame and allowing a young Coyotes team to run unopposed in the Oilers zone, Edmonton showed plenty of urgency over the final period and a level of patience that was a good reminder to the group that when things aren’t going their direction, they have the tools and the team to turn things around.

“I think it's just when things aren't going our way or we don't have our best game going, just stay composed and don’t panic knowing if we hang around long enough and get our game in order, we can pull it out,” Kane said. “And that was a good example of doing that this afternoon.”

McDavid picked up two more assists in Arizona to give him 12 helpers in his last four games and five goals and 19 assists since Jan. 23, which leads the NHL. With 83 points in 50 games – including a League-leading 62 assists – McDavid is 11 points back of Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov for the NHL scoring lead with six games in hand.

The Oilers captain returns to Rogers Place where he’s on a 19-game home point streak, totalling 12 goals and 34 assists, as he tries to become the sixth player in NHL history to have multiple home points streaks of 20-plus games.

Right behind McDavid in the scoring Race is David Pastrnak (80), who scored with 1:35 left in regulation against the Dallas Stars on Monday for his sixth career 35-goal season in Boston’s 4-3 shootout-thriller at TD Garden. Bruins defenceman Charlie McAvoy finished off the shootout in the ninth round, putting an end to a challenging extended seven-game homestand for Boston where they went 2-3-2.

Despite the Bruins claiming the extra point on Monday, the Bruins (33-12-11) have not won in regulation in their last five games and are now second in the Atlantic Division behind the Florida Panthers from their poor stretch of results and the Cats’ six-game winning streak.

The Oilers have lost each of their last three meetings with the Bruins on home ice, marking their longest-active home losing streak against one opponent.