Draisaitl helps Oilers recover, defeat Maple Leafs

TORONTO --Leon Draisaitl scored the tiebreaking goal midway through the third period to help the Edmonton Oilers defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.

"I thought we were very solid for 60 minutes, all four lines, the defensemen, obviously our goalie was huge for us tonight. That was a huge win and more the way we want to play," Draisaitl said. "Against that team, you don't want to get into a run-and-gun. They're too dangerous and have too much skill. I thought we did a really good job of staying tight and sticking together."
Draisaitl made it 2-1 at 9:12 with his first goal of the season, getting the rebound after Ryan Nugent-Hopkins' shot hit off the leg of Jesse Puljujarvi and scoring past a sprawling Frederik Andersen. It was Edmonton's first power-play goal in 15 opportunities.
"We looked like we'd been kind of pressing on our power play a bit, but you get that one big goal at the right time, it gives everybody a boost," Oilers coach Dave Tippett said.
Kailer Yamamoto scored, and Mikko Koskinen made 25 saves for the Oilers (2-3-0), who had lost two in a row.

"Koskinen was solid, really solid. What you want from your goalie is to give your team a chance to win, and that's exactly what he did," Tippett said. "He made a couple good saves late there for us after I think he'd want that one he let in back."
Auston Matthews scored, and Andersen made 19 saves for the Maple Leafs (3-2-0), who had won two straight.
"I think both teams just watched the prescout and were trying to key in on the top guys," Matthews said. "There was not much going on. We really didn't do a great job through the neutral zone and we couldn't get much going and there wasn't a whole lot of offense in this game. That was not really expected, but we definitely have to do a better job of creating offense."

Matthews tied it 1-1 at 6:44 of the third period when he stole the puck in the corner from Zack Kassian and beat Koskinen with a shot from along the goal line.
"I thought he worked, did a pretty good job, but I thought all our guys were disconnected today," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. "Anything where we had success like Auston on his goal was very individual. He created the takeaway, he attacked the net, but we didn't do much with any kind of connection (throughout the game). That made it difficult because they defended well."
After Draisaitl scored 2:28 later to give Edmonton the lead, Josh Archibald shot into an empty net with 1:06 remaining to make it 3-1.
Yamamoto was credited with the goal that gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 10:42 of the first period after Maple Leafs forward Jimmy Vesey's clearing attempt in the slot went off the skate of defenseman Jake Muzzin and past the left pad of Andersen.
"You could tell our group had a lot more energy. The last game against [the Montreal Canadiens] (a 3-1 loss Monday), there was some fatigue in our game and it led to some mistakes," Tippett said. "Tonight, there was an excitement playing on the road, it was our first road game since last March. Pretty solid all the way through the game."
Maple Leafs forward Joe Thornton left the game at 2:51 of the third period, appearing to favor his left wrist after a collision with Archibald.
"Looks like he's definitely going to miss some time here with us, but we don't know the extent of it," Keefe said. "He's going to have to get more tests and images and stuff like that later this week. That's how it goes sometimes."
The Maple Leafs and Oilers play again here Friday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN+, TSN4, SNW, NHL.TV).