Oilers score seven in Game 6 win against Ducks

EDMONTON -- Leon Draisaitl had three goals and two assists for the Edmonton Oilers in a 7-1 win against the Anaheim Ducks in Game 6 of Western Conference Second Round at Rogers Place on Sunday.
The best-of-7 series is tied 3-3 with Game 7 at Anaheim on Wednesday. The Ducks have been eliminated from the past four Stanley Cup Playoffs in a Game 7 at home.
Mark Letestu had two goals and two assists, Zack Kassian and Anton Slepyshev also scored, and Cam Talbot made 34 saves for Edmonton. Connor McDavid had no points.

WATCH: [All Ducks vs. Oilers highlights | RELATED: Complete Anaheim vs. Edmonton series coverage]
"[Draisaitl] stepped up big," Oilers left wing Milan Lucic said. "We needed someone to step up and he's stepped up like he has all season long. He came up huge for us when we needed it the most."
Rickard Rakell scored for Anaheim. John Gibson was pulled after allowing three goals on six shots. Jonathan Bernier made 25 saves in relief.
"I wasn't very good, I have to come up with a couple of saves and maybe it's different, maybe it's not," Gibson said. "As it went on they kind of took it to us, it wasn't our best. I wasn't as good as I wanted to be and I kind of let [my teammates] down."

The Oilers scored five goals in the first period, one shy of their playoff record for most goals in a period.
"A first period like that, you give yourself such a big lead, and I thought all four lines were very dangerous tonight," Draisaitl said. "Obviously, the season was on the line and we all had to step it up a notch and I thought the whole group did."
Draisaitl scored on a breakaway at 2:45 to make it 1-0, and scored at 7:22 to make it 2-0, taking a pass from Lucic in front and sliding the puck through the pads of Gibson.
Kassian gave Edmonton a 3-0 lead at 8:25 on a breakaway.
Letestu scored at 11:39 to give Edmonton a 4-0 lead, and then scored on the power play at 18:49 to make it 5-0.
Edmonton had blown a 3-0 lead in the last 3:16 of the third period and lost 4-3 in overtime in Game 5.

"We're better than people give us credit for," Letestu said. "We had a tough game in San Jose where we lost 7-0 (in the first round) and we came back and won the next two games in that series. I don't think there is anything that we're going to come across that we can't bounce back from. We proved that to each other tonight."
Slepyshev scored 45 seconds into the second period on a 2-on-1 rush to put Edmonton up 6-0.
Rakell scored at 8:56 to make it 6-1.
Draisaitl completed his hat trick on the power play at 15:27.
"You give up two breakaways in the first 10 minutes, I don't think you deserve to win the game," Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano said. "It could have been 20-1, really. It doesn't matter. I know it's fun for the fans and it's probably fun for them, beating us pretty bad, but we'll just figure out what we did wrong and move on."
Edmonton was without defensemen Andrej Sekera and Oscar Klefbom, who sustained undisclosed injuries in Game 5 on Friday in Anaheim. Sekera is expected to miss Game 7.

Goal of the game

Benning took a pass from Draisaitl at the point and slid the puck to Letestu, who scored on a one-time shot past Bernier for his second of the game.

Save of the game

Talbot made a glove save on Cogliano at 5:00 of the second period.

Unsung performance of the game

Oilers defenseman Griffin Reinhart was a last-minute replacement for Klefbom and had an assist, five hits, and one shot on goal in 13:23 of ice time in his first Stanley Cup Playoff game for Edmonton.

Highlight of the game

On the power play, Draisaitl passed the puck to Lucic along the wing and got it right back in the slot before scoring his third goal of the game.

They said it

"There are players that it just works for them for some nights against some teams, and yet there are other buildings that they struggle in. I can't explain it, I don't know why." -- Oilers coach Todd McLellan on Leon Draisaitl's success against the Ducks
"Everything. They score on basically the first three chances to score. We weren't able to recover. As a group, we didn't handle the puck." -- Ducks coach Randy Carlyle on what went wrong
"It's been a pretty emotional series, throughout six games and eventually the tempers are going to flare. I think both teams are looking forward to Wednesday night and we're just thankful for the opportunity that presents itself," -- Oilers left wing Milan Lucic

Need to know

McLellan said Klefbom is expected to be ready for Game 7. Draisaitl is the fifth Oilers player to have multiple 4-point games or better in the playoffs since 1999, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson. Draisaitl is the first Oilers player with a playoff hat trick since Bill Guerin in 2000 against the Dallas Stars and second-youngest (21 years, 194 days) Edmonton player to score a hat trick in the postseason behind Gretzky. The last time Edmonton played in a Game 7 was in the 2006 Stanley Cup Final against the Carolina Hurricanes, which they lost 3-1. … The Ducks have also lost Game 6 on the road in each of the past four playoffs.

What's next

Game 7 of Western Conference Second Round at Honda Center on Wednesday (TBA; NBCSN, SN, TVA Sports)