Draisaitl, Oilers recover for OT win against Canadiens

EDMONTON -- Leon Draisaitl scored a power-play goal at 3:18 of overtime for the Edmonton Oilers, who recovered for a 3-2 win against the Montreal Canadiens at Rogers Place on Tuesday.

Draisaitl scored with a one-timer from the bottom of the right face-off circle off a pass from Connor McDavid. The goal came after Joel Armia was assessed a double minor for high-sticking with 28 seconds left in regulation.

“They’re a team that has nothing to lose and lots of skill,” Draisaitl said. “We would have liked to have handled that third period better, but sometimes that’s just the way it goes. We’ll take it.

“It is dangerous and in the past we’ve found ways to lose those games, we would kind of let the frustration sink in a little bit. We’ll take the two points, but obviously there is lots to do better.”

McDavid had a goal and an assist, and Mattias Ekholm had two assists for the Oilers (41-21-4), who were coming off a 3-2 overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday but are 8-1-2 in their past 11 games. Calvin Pickard mad 23 saves.

Nick Suzuki and Kaiden Guhle scored in the third period, and Sam Montembeault made 29 saves for the Canadiens (25-31-12), who have lost three in a row (0-1-2) and five of six (1-3-2).

“It’s one of the best games that we’ve played all year, so a lot of positives,” Montreal assistant coach Trevor Letowski said. “I’m not going to stand here and be negative. It’s a tough way to go down because the players really left everything on the line, and to have to kill [four] minutes like that in the game, especially against a team like that, we almost got to the end, but they made us pay right at the end of it.”

McDavid gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead at 9:20 of the first period, skating down the slot with the puck on his backhand before cutting back to his forehand and tucking a shot around Montembeault's right pad. The play started after Ekholm poked the puck away from Josh Anderson in the Canadiens zone.

Henrique made it 2-0 at 14:55 of the second period, tapping in a centering pass from Ekholm. It was his first goal in six games since being acquired from the Anaheim Ducks in a three-team trade on March 6.

“I feel my game’s been good,” Henrique said. “Of course you want to score coming into a new team. You want to find ways to contribute. For me, the focus is that the complete game has to be there. Certainly nice to get on the board tonight.”

Suzuki cut it 2-1 just 32 seconds into the third period. Juraj Slafkovsky's centering pass deflected in off his back skate as he got tied up in the crease with Oilers defenseman Cody Ceci.

“It’s definitely a tough pill to swallow right now," Suzuki said. "We played a good game and fought our way back in the third and we just couldn’t kill the rest of the power play they got."

Guhle tied it 2-2 at 4:43, taking a lead pass from Jake Evans and skating down the left wing before scoring under Pickard's glove.

“They just kept coming at us and we couldn’t really weather the storm for a bit there,” Ekholm said. “That is on us to learn from. It is something we will have to be better at.

“As a whole of a game, I think the first was clearly our period and thought that the second was pretty even. So, if you look at it over 60 minutes, it was a pretty even game. Obviously, us staying disciplined at the end helped us.”

The Oilers finished 1-for-5 on the power play. The Canadiens were 0-for-3.

“It’s frustrating, I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot lately, we’re playing so well and we can’t seem to find [two] points,” Guhle said. “Playing against basically every top team in the League and we’re playing them hard. That was another game where ... we deserved a better fate again.

“It’s frustrating, but we have to keep our heads high for the rest of the games.”

NOTES: Draisaitl scored his 61st game-winning goal, tying Wayne Gretzky for third in Oilers history. Glenn Anderson is first with 72, and McDavid is second with 68. ... Slafkovsky extended his point streak to five games (one goal, five assists). … Pickard won his 10th game of the season, the first time he's reached the mark since 2016-17, when he won 15 games for the Avalanche.