David Krejci scored the winner late in the third giving the Boston Bruins a 3-2 comeback win over the Edmonton Oilers Tuesday night at Rogers Place.
The Oilers had a 2-0 lead going into the third period but the Bruins wouldn’t be denied.
“The difference between the two teams is they played to win and we kind of played to not lose in the third,” Oilers head coach Todd McLellan said after the game. “That’s just where one team is now and where the other is and the work that we have to do to close the gap.”
“We let them dictate the pace. I felt like we were sitting back and trying to win a game like that and you can’t against a team like that. We gave them too many opportunities and we’ve just got to be better,” Oilers defenceman Kris Russell added.
The Bruins outshot the Oilers 13-3 in the first period but Edmonton scored the only goal. Ryan Strome decided to shoot on a two-on-one and beat Anton Khudobin for his ninth of the season. The goal was scored during a stretch of four-on-four hockey with 1:31 left in the period.
The Bruins racked up 16 more shots in the second period and had two power plays but once again couldn’t solve Cam Talbot. Jujhar Khaira broke an 11-game goalless drought at 11:38 when he snapped a shot from the slot right under the crossbar.
Boston amped up the pressure in the third period and finally broke through early on a goal by Noel Acciari. Matt Grzelcyk tied it with 8:18 to go. Krejci sniped the winner with 1:04 left.
“It was a tough play for Drake (Caggiula), it was a reverse that got away from him. He had to go get the puck and he ended up in the corner with (David) Backes who is a bigger man and he got on the wrong side of it,” McLellan said of the play that led to the game-winning goal. “They’re deadly from below the goal line into that slot area. Rusty (Russell) made a commitment to the post and it got by him into the slot and our forwards had kind of vacated that area already and Cam (Talbot), who was outstanding, couldn’t make one more save for us.”
The Oilers earned their first power play of the night with 44 seconds left when Connor McDavid was tripped, but they couldn’t find the tying goal.
Talbot was excellent in net, making 42 saves, but wound up taking the loss. Khudobin made 18 stops.
The Oilers have lost seven of their last eight. They’ll host Colorado on Thursday.
-With files from Brenden Ullrich
Comments