The Edmonton Oilers ended the Boston Bruins ten-game winning streak with a 3-2 win Thursday night.
“We felt that we were doing a lot of really good things out there,” Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft said after the game. “We just needed to find that first goal to cut it in half and then our guys got it done in the third period. I thought our forecheck was really good in the third period and we found a way against a really good team. You can see why they’re the class of the NHL right now.”
It’s only the third time this season the Bruins have lost a home game in regulation time.
The Oilers had some early possession in the Boston zone, but the Bruins took the lead on their first shot of the game.
Brad Marchand sifted a left wing shot through Stuart Skinner to make it 1-0 just prior to the four minute mark.
In the dying seconds of the first, David Krejci knocked down Skinner’s clearing attempt and fed David Pastrnak, who blasted home his 45th of the season with 0.3 seconds on the clock.
“Every single game I’ve gotten scored on at least once this year,” Skinner said. “So, I think having that experience — getting scored on in the NHL — the fans go loud, especially here in the Garden and just being able to reset always, like how I always do; thought I did a good job doing that. And then they got a second one, kind of the last little bit, kind of took a little bit of the momentum off, but the guys did a great job not letting that affect us. Huge props to the guys in front of me.”
Just past the halfway point of the second, the Oilers broke out on a four-on-one. Mattias Janmark set up Evan Bouchard, who fired in his first goal since November 28, breaking a 43-game goalless drought.
The Oilers pulled even 6:08 into the third.
Devin Shore blocked a clearing attempt and put the puck in front for Ryan McLeod, who buried his eleventh.
Darnell Nurse provided the winner with 4:49 left as his wrister from the left point floated past Jeremy Swayman.
“We’ve got confidence in our group,” Nurse said. “I think I was saying this morning that we could play with anyone in this league. But I mean it’s one thing to say, it’s another thing to go out there and do it and we did tonight. “And I think, obviously, we got some huge saves — some big commitments to defence only giving up two and capitalizing on our opportunities.”
The Bruins had been 35-0-2 when leading after two periods.
Skinner finished with 26 saves. Connor McDavid had his point streak end at eleven games.
The Oilers, 36-22-8, have won six of their last seven visits to Boston. They’ll visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday. (The 630 CHED Face-off Show begins at 3:30 p.m., game at 5 p.m.)