Oilers hold off Red Wings to win third straight

EDMONTON -- Evander Kane scored twice, and the Edmonton Oilers held off the Detroit Red Wings for a 7-5 win at Rogers Place on Tuesday.

Connor McDavid and Kailer Yamamoto each had a goal and assist, and Mikko Koskinen made 30 saves for the Oilers (33-23-4), who have won three straight.
"We got off to the perfect start, we probably spent the first five minutes in their zone, and they had no shots and we had three goals. You couldn't draw it up any better than that," Kane said. "But then we started getting away from what was making us successful in those first five, and maybe got a little too comfortable where we were at in the game, and that leaked into the second, and we had a poor start to the third period."
Marc Staal scored two goals for the first time in his 1,001 NHL games, Sam Gagner had a goal and an assist, and Taro Hirose had two assists for the Red Wings (24-29-7), who have lost six in a row.
Thomas Greiss allowed three goals on six shots before being replaced 4:35 into the first period by Alex Nedeljkovic who made 22 saves on 25 shots.
"I'll be honest with you, I thought we did tons of good stuff in this game. Right now, pucks are going in, when teams get chances the pucks are going in," Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. "They're fighting for their lives for a playoff spot. Of course, they're going to come out hard at home. They get matchups and stuff like that. I thought we did tons of good stuff. We talked about being mentally tough and I thought we were unreal that way."
Devin Shore gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 1:59 of the first period, tipping in a shot from Derek Ryan.

McDavid made it 2-0 at 3:11 and Zach Hyman extended the lead to 3-0 at 4:35 to end an eight-game goal drought.
"Part of the game plan was to come out hard, and I think we've done that on this homestand (3-0-0), to assert our game plan on the other team immediately," Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. "We accomplished that, but then there was a little bit of a lull, and what was at the root of that lull was a lot of self-inflicted errors, passing through people, turnovers at the offensive blue line, just things that we didn't demonstrate in the first five minutes.
"In the end, it's a credit to our players for finding a way to win when it got tense there."
Staal made it 3-1 at 8:46 on a point shot through a screen.
Yamamoto scored a power-play goal to give Edmonton a 4-1 lead at 18:37 of the second period.
The Red Wings then scored three straight goals: Gagner made it 4-2 at 18:06 of the second; Filip Zadina cut it to 4-3 at 2:18 of the third period on the power play; Staal tied it 4-4 on a shot from just inside the blue line 34 seconds later.
"At 4-2 going into the third period, we had a good feeling that if we kept shooting and get to the net for traffic and we did that," Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said. "We scored a couple of big goals and we scored a big goal on the power play. Unfortunately, the game just went back and forth too much for us."
Kane made it 5-4 at 4:15 with a shot under the blocker from the right circle.
Lucas Raymond tied it 5-5 at 6:32 after Larkin stole the puck from Koskinen behind the net.

Warren Foegele gave the Oilers a 6-5 lead on a wraparound attempt that went in off the skate of Staal.
"We just got away from what was making us successful, playing north, getting pucks behind their [defensemen]," Foegele said. "We were making plays that we haven't been doing a lot lately. That is something we don't want to creep into our game. We were fortunate enough that we finished it off and got the two points, but that is not something that we want to do."
Kane scored an empty-net goal at 18:51 for the 7-5 final.
"I'm proud of the way our guys worked and competed throughout the game," Blashill said. "When Kane scores [to make it 5-4] we could have slumped, and we never slumped at all. It's tough at the end there, you want to find a way to win, and I thought we certainly could have won the hockey game, so that's tough."
NOTES: Gagner had two points and five shots on goal in 13:19 of ice time in his first game back in Edmonton since being traded to Detroit on Feb. 24, 2020. Gagner had 317 points (111 goals, 206 assists) in 542 games with the Oilers. He played in his 946 NHL game on Tuesday, the same number his father Dave played in 15 NHL seasons. … Kane has 17 points (10 goals, 7 assists) in 21 games since signing with the Oilers on Jan. 27. … McDavid had his 200th career multipoint game, the most among players who made their NHL debut in 2015-16. Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl, who had two assists, is second with 162. ... Hirose had two assists and one blocked shot in 11:15 of ice time after being recalled from Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League on March 11. ... Oilers forward Josh Archibald, who played his second game of the season, had an assist for his first point after missing the first 58 games with myocarditis.