Drake Caggiula scored the game-winner with 49.8 seconds left as the Edmonton Oilers gutted out a 3-2 win over the St. Louis Blues Thursday night at Rogers Place.
The Oilers had to come from behind twice in the third period to secure the two points.
“We talked about being a resilient group – we’ve had to come back from leads before but we have a lot more belief in our group now,” Caggiula said after the game.”There’s a lot more confidence in the locker room and we didn’t get down on ourselves on the bench after giving up a goal.”
“You go down by a goal twice to a team like that and battle back against a real good defensive team that played us hard all night, so the resiliency in this group right now is at a level like we saw last season,” added Oilers goaltender Cam Talbot.
Talbot had to be sharp in the first period as the Oilers were outshot 10-5. He stopped Scottie Upshall from the slot just 17 seconds into the game. He denied Patrick Berglund on a shorthanded breakaway later in the frame. In the final minute of the period, Talbot darted across the crease and robbed Paul Stastny from in close. The Oilers had a four-minute power play but managed just one shot on goal.
The Oilers had several good scoring chances in the second period. Darnell Nurse hit the post on a rebound try halfway through the frame. Caggiula had a chance in close in the last minute, but Jake Allen came up with the save.
Tage Thompson finally broke the ice 9:30 into the third when his shot from the high slot eluded Talbot. Mike Cammalleri tied it 38 seconds later when his sharp angle shot deflected in off a Blues defenceman. Berglund pounded a one-timer just under the crossbar to make it 2-1 St. Louis with 6:38 left. The Oilers replied again. Milan Lucic’s long cross-ice pass sprung Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid. McDavid flipped a shot over a sprawling Allen to even it with 3:41 remaining.
In the final minute, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins set up behind the Blues net and centred a pass to Caggiula, who beat Allen glove side.
“It was a little bit in my feet so I didn’t get all of it,” Caggiula said. “It’s just one of those things that you just try to get the puck on net and hopefully it goes in. I had a few chances earlier in the game so it was nice to see one go in.”
The players in the room after the game all talked about resiliency. Oilers head coach Todd McLellan echoed that sentiment.
“We’ve been resilient in the past three weeks as a team,” McLellan said. “We go to Montreal, we have a good game, we go to Toronto and feel like we deserve more but were resilient the next night. Even against Nashville we were resilient the next night. Tonight we didn’t have to wait for the next night, we got it done in the third.
“I thought if the breaks were going to go our way, then it was going to go our way tonight. We hit so many posts that eventually something had to go in and it did.”
Talbot made 34 saves, including a diving paddle stop after turning the puck over to Stastny behind the net.
“It’s the way it’s been lately,” Stastny explained. “There’s going to be times you shoot wide and it hits something and goes in and there’s times when you can’t hit the net from anywhere. What are you going to do?
“It’s a good save and you look at the replay and you tell yourself maybe you should just put it on the ice. But then when you put it on the ice, he makes a paddle save.”
“(It was) just desperation – I didn’t hear a call and I held onto it a little bit too long,” Talbot said. “They are a team that gets on you quick, so it was just scramble back to the net as fast as you can and hope for the best.
“I can laugh about it now but if that went in, I would have been really upset with myself.”
The Oilers (16-17-2) have won three in a row for the first time all season. They’ll host Montreal on Saturday.
-With files from Brenden Ullrich and Scott Johnston
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