McDavid scores twice, Oilers end Mammoth's winning streak at 7

EDMONTON -- Connor McDavid scored two goals for the Edmonton Oilers, who ended the Utah Mammoth's seven-game winning streak with a 6-3 come-from-behind victory at Rogers Place on Tuesday.

Leon Draisaitl and Mattias Ekholm each had a goal and an assist, and Evan Bouchard had three assists for the Oilers (5-4-2), who had lost two in a row (0-1-1). Stuart Skinner made 20 saves.

"Obviously, you don’t want to put yourselves in these situations too often. This league is so good, every team can make you pay for that. But the way that we can respond is a great sign and is something we have excelled at the past few years," Edmonton forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. "It’s much more comfortable to start well and kind of roll from there, but to be able to show up after a poor first period like that is a lot of good signs for our team."

Logan Cooley, JJ Peterka and Barrett Hayton scored for the Mammoth (8-3-0), who were concluding a four-game road trip. Karel Vejmelka made 19 saves.

“I thought we did a good job through this last stretch in staying pretty even-keeled,” Hayton said. “Every day’s a new day and just getting after it. Right now, everyone in that room is disappointed and frustrated, and it’s definitely not the way we wanted to end off this road trip.

“I think we’ve got to flush it the next day, understand that this last stretch has been a lot of good and a lot to build on, and we just need to get that mindset back.”

Cooley put the Mammoth ahead 1-0 at 9:25 of the first period. Dylan Guenther fanned on a shot in the right circle, but he gathered the puck back up and sent a backhand pass across to Cooley, who scored glove side off the post from the left circle.

Peterka extended the lead to 2-0 at 17:45. Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse had his dump-in attempt hit off a linesman in the neutral zone, and Peterka picked up the loose puck and skated down the left wing before roofing a wrist shot over Skinner's blocker from the top of the circle.

“Obviously, we played a really good first period. We’re really happy about the way we played and the focus we had,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “We went away from that big time in the second and we paid for it. There was a good team on the other side. It’s unfortunate, but we don’t want to forget that we had six points out of eight on that trip and we have a good lesson today. So, there’s a lot of positives. We didn’t go too high when we had success and we won’t go too low after a game like that.”

Ekholm cut it to 2-1 with his first goal of the season just 22 seconds into the second period. He took a cross-ice pass from Draisaitl and scored with a slap shot from the top of the left circle that went into the top corner over Vejmelka’s blocker.

“I think everybody felt enough was enough. I can go to myself, I haven’t liked my game at all the last five, six games,” Ekholm said. “I don’t think many guys in here have. It was kind of coming to a point where we said, ‘OK, we need to start putting our work boots on.’ And kudos to us, we responded in that second period. More importantly, we found our game and that has to be the standard going forward. Everybody in this league is too good where you can't just coast your way through a regular season.”

Isaac Howard tied it 2-2 at 3:13 of the second. He scored with a quick shot in front after Adam Henrique forced John Marino into a turnover behind the net.

Hayton put the Mammoth back in front 3-2 at 8:19. Skinner couldn't control the puck behind the net, and Nick Schmaltz picked it up and passed out front to Hayton, who shot into an open cage before the goaltender could get back in position.

Draisaitl answered back to tie it 3-3 at 13:33. Jake Walman's initial shot from the left circle produced a big rebound into the right circle, where Draisaitl quickly one-timed it past Vejmelka.

Ty Emberson scored his first goal of the season 37 seconds later to give the Oilers their first lead at 4-3. Ekholm's initial one-timer deflected off Henrique in front and bounced right to Emberson, who scored past Vejmelka's outstretched left pad from the right circle.

McDavid extended the lead to 5-3 at 17:56 with a one-timer from the right circle off a return pass from Nugent-Hopkins.

McDavid then shot into an empty net at 17:34 of the third period for the 6-3 final.

“We kind of needed a bit of a wake-up in between the first and second,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “I thought we responded well and kept it going from there. Obviously, that first period, we have much more than that. It was good to see us respond.

“We gave ourselves a little kick in the butt and went from there.”

NOTES: Draisaitl extended his point streak to six games (five goals, four assists). ... Schmaltz extended his point streak to eight games (seven goals, eight assists), and Guenther extended his point streak to six games (three goals, five assists). ... Bouchard (one goal, six assists) and Nugent-Hopkins (one goal, five assists) each extended his point streak to five games.