BOSTON – Andrej Sekera scored 41 seconds into overtime to lift the Edmonton Oilers to their sixth straight win, 3-2 over the Boston Bruins on Monday night.
Cam Talbot made 47 saves, and Jordon Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored first-period goals for Edmonton. The victory halted an eight-game losing streak in Boston for the Oilers, fresh off a 5-0 homestand — their best since 1987.
The Oilers won the overtime faceoff, rushed into the Boston zone and Sekera won it with a wrister from the slot after backup goalie Jonas Gustavsson stopped one shot.
The Bruins had tied it on Brad Marchand’s goal with 4:38 to play in regulation.
Matt Beleskey also scored for Boston, which has earned at least one point in each of its last 16 games against the Oilers (13-0-3).
Gustavsson made 21 saves. Top goalie Tuukka Rask had the night off in the midst of a hot stretch, posting a 6-0-2 mark in his last eight starts.
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The Oilers entered 4-10-1 on the road.
Marchand tied it with a rising wrister inside the left post from the right circle. It was his team-leading 15th of the season. Edmonton challenged that Boston was offside, but the call stood.
The Bruins had excellent scoring chances in the opening minutes of the game, but the Oilers grabbed a 1-0 lead when Eberle scored off a rebound from the edge of the crease at 8:29 of the first period.
In the initial 6 1/2 minutes, Talbot came across the crease to make a sliding pad stop off the rebound of Beleskey’s shot when the puck caromed off a skate. He also made a right-pad save on Brett Connolly’s wrister from the right circle, and Torey Krug unloaded a shot off the crossbar before Eberle’s goal.
Edmonton made it 2-0 when Nugent-Hopkins scored on his own rebound 13:58 into the first. Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara lost his balance trying to play a puck in the corner, and Eberle set up Nugent-Hopkins in the slot.
The Bruins got a break when Beleskey’s soft shot slipped between Talbot’s body and the left post, slicing it to 2-1 late in the second.
Edmonton was held without a shot on goal for nearly 17 minutes in the second.
NOTES: Oilers president and general manager Peter Chiarelli was with the team. It was his first game in TD Garden since the Bruins fired him as GM after not making the playoffs last season. . Boston lost the only other regular-season meeting between the teams this season, 3-2 in a shootout in Edmonton on Dec. 2. . Edmonton D Nikita Nikitin was recalled last Thursday after being cut following training camp. He played his first game of the season Monday. . The Bruins host Pittsburgh on Wednesday. Edmonton faces the Rangers on Tuesday, the second game of four-game road trip.
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