GAME RECAP: Oilers 6, Devils 3

NEWARK, NJ – The Edmonton Oilers scored four goals in the final frame, including three goals in 69 seconds, to defeat the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night at the Prudential Center in a 6-3 comeback victory that puts an end to their three-game losing streak.

McDavid notched his 12th goal of the campaign to make it 3-3 just 1:40 into the final period and begin a three-goal stretch for the Oilers in just under a minute, where Leon Draisaitl also added his 14th of the year on an unassisted back-hand snipe before Adam Erne tallied his first goal in a Blue & Orange uniform just 27 seconds later.

Ryan McLeod produced two goals in the victory to outduel his brother Michael, who produced two assists for the Devils, while Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each recorded a goal and an assist.

"Yeah, it's huge," McLeod said of beating his older brother. "Tough little road trip that we're on, so it was nice to get that win and get back in the win column for our group. Obviously a good night for both of us, but I'm glad we came out on top."

Sam Gagner and Mattias Ekholm each contributed two helpers, and netminder Calvin Pickard made 23 saves on 26 shots to pick up his second victory of the season – both over the Devils.

"Our goaltending has been there when we needed it and I think tonight was a good show of resilience," McDavid said. "You need one of those to snap a losing streak like that."

The Oilers conclude their back-to-back set on Friday night at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers.

FIRST PERIOD

After Draisaitl scored 83 seconds into Tuesday's loss to the Islanders, the Oilers enjoyed another fast start in Newark on Thursday that allowed them to weather New Jersey's pushback later in the period.

With his older brother Michael on the New Jersey bench, Ryan McLeod took the opening faceoff against Jack Hughes in a tough opening assignment against the Devils' top unit alongside Mattias Janmark and Sam Gagner on Edmonton's third line.

Michael McLeod owns the NHL's best face-off percentage this season (65.8 percent) and has registered goals in back-to-back games, but the Devils centre had to look on as his younger brother opened the scoring just 24 seconds into this contest.

Janmark lifted the stick of defenceman Luke Hughes on an early forecheck below New Jersey's goal line, forcing the puck onto the tape of the waiting Gagner to quickly fire a pass to the opposite post for McLeod, who snapped home his third goal of the season under Akira Schmid inside the opening 30 seconds.

The Oilers extended their league-leading total for goals inside the first two minutes of games to seven this season on the Mississauga, Ont. product's third goal, which follows his early strike back on Dec. 6 when he recorded his last goal by opening the scoring 28 seconds into a 6-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Blue & Orange dominated the game's opening stages and the re-assembled top line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Connor McDavid and Zach Hyman picked up where they left off to double Edmonton's early lead.

The trio has been one of the NHL's most effective lines with just over 79 percent of the expected goal share in over 112:43 minutes of ice time together this season, as per Natural Stat Trick, and their hard work in the offensive zone paid off five minutes after McLeod's opener when Nugent-Hopkins cleaned up Hyman's deflection that came off Mattias Ekholm's point shot.

"I thought Hyman did a great job all night and Ekky did a great job getting it to the net," Erne said. "It's just kind of sticking with what we were doing and finally, it worked out for us."

The Devils would take control after Nugent-Hopkins made it 2-0 by limiting the Oilers to only two shots in the final 13:41 of the period – with both coming from Evander Kane in the final minute before the intermission.

Michael McLeod made sure he wasn't going to be the only McLeod brother without a point when he dropped a pass to Dawson Mercer on the rush before he beat Pickard with a shot off the far post and in at 6:46 of the first period, cutting the lead to 2-1.

With both McLeod brothers recording points, Thursday night became the first game where both of them found the stat sheet in the same game.

SECOND PERIOD

Much like earlier in the week, Thursday night's middle frame was a continuation of the frustrating trend the Oilers have experienced over their three-game losing streak where the results haven't matched the effort.

They just simply had to keep sticking with it.

"I've liked a lot of aspects of our game. I feel like we've had lots of chances, but we've just been finding ways to lose games," McDavid said. "I thought we did that on the Island. We did that against Tampa. The Florida game's kind of a write-off, so I thought we responded well tonight. Obviously in a tough spot down one heading into the third period, but I thought there was great resilience and the boys stuck with it."

The Oilers lost the special teams battle back on Tuesday after giving up two power-play goals and a short-handed marker to the Islanders in the middle frame, ultimately leading to their 3-1 defeat.

This time, Edmonton outshot the Devils 18-6 in the second period and maintained the majority of the offensive-zone time and momentum, but they found themselves down 3-2 through 40 minutes after Jonas Siegenthaler and Timo Meier bookended the period with their respective first and sixth goals of the season.

Siegenthaler snuck his first goal of the campaign through traffic and past Pickard just 1:39 into the second period on a wrist shot from the top of the zone. before Meier notched his first goal in nine games for the Devils to make it 3-2 with over three-and-a-half minutes remaining.

"The second period wasn't what we wanted," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "They came out and scored early in the period, but I thought we did a lot of good things. We didn't score the goals, but I thought we deserved a better fate."

THIRD PERIOD

For how hard the Oilers have felt like they've been pressuring the opposition over their three-game losing streak, the final frame certainly felt like their long-overdue reward.

"The message in the room was kind of just 'stay the same,' McLeod said of the intermission team talk. "We thought were doing good enough things to win the game and we came out, got some good bounces and took the game over."

McDavid showed patience when he scored 1:40 into the final period for the equalizing goal by outwaiting Vitek Vanecek and putting away his 12th goal of the campaign after Ekholm once again delivered the shot on goal that produced the important rebound.

"We just wanted to get pucks there," McDavid said. "We felt there were a lot of pucks lying around the net. Sometimes you just need a bounce, and we got one there early.

The captain's early goal started a sequence of three goals in 69 seconds for the Oilers which quickly shifted the momentum firmly back in Edmonton's direction. "It's a big stretch of the game that turned it in our favour, for sure," McDavid said.

Draisaitl lifted Edmonton back into the lead after Kevin Bahl turned it over to the German before he floated his follow-up backhand over the left shoulder of Vanececk for an unassisted marker – his 14th goal and 35th point this season.

"It's impressive when that puck goes on his backhand," Knoblauch said. "Usually, we're telling guys to keep the puck off their backhand, but he's one of the guys that can make some incredible shots and passes on his backhand, so we let it go. He can put the puck on his backhand."

With the Devils still collecting themselves, Erne took off up the ice in an odd-man rush with James Hamblin and wrapped his first goal in a Blue & Orange uniform around the outstretched right pad of Vanecek to make it 5-3 for the Oilers just 17 seconds after Draisaitl scored their second goal of the period.

"I think that's part of us just sticking with the process," Erne said. "I think we're lucky enough to have the firepower on this team to be able to do that, so I do think it's important that we just stick to our game. "I know that's pretty generic and a lot of teams say that, but for a team that can just pop goals in like us with the players that we have in our lineup, I just stick with the game and eventually it will work out."

Erner's first goal in Blue & Orange brought big cheers from the bench for the winger who suited up for the first time in nearly a month (eight games) in favour of Connor Brown on Thursday.

"We were so happy for him on the bench," Knoblauch said. "It was nice to see him score the goal, but I thought he broke up a lot of plays defensively, made some plays on defence or broke the puck out on the wall. Adam played a really good game. That's what we expect from him and he delivered."

McLeod's first-career multi-point game was at the Prudential Center back in 2021, and he registered another with his second tally of the night.

The centre made the most of yet another Devils turnover when Luke Hughes mishandled a rimmed puck below before it found its way to his stick before patiently tucking away the final goal at 10:56 of the period.

PARTING WORDS

Erne on scoring his first goal as an Oiler:

"Yeah, it's great. Dad's in the stands, best buddy's in the stands, so it's a good time to get my first one for sure. Yeah, just feels great."

"We only come out here once this year. Usually, I've been around here a lot more playing in the East in the past, so it's definitely special to be able to perform in front of them."·

McLeod on the group's ability to stick to it when the results have not followed their effort:

"I think just from everyone in the group. It's a group thing. If you look at all the analytics and things, we're doing a lot and we're controlling most of the games. It's just kind of bearing down our chances when we get them and keeping the puck out of our net, I think just little details and we should be able to get on a little run."

McDavid on Erne and him being rewarded with his first Oilers goal tonight:

"It's never a fun situation to be sitting out of the lineup, and he'd been doing it for a long time with a smile on his face and just being a great teammate. That's all you can ask for. He steps in and scores a big goal at a big time, and that's what you ask of your teammates and ask out of everybody."