GAME STORY: Oilers 4, Coyotes 2

GLENDALE, AZ - Darnell Nurse scored two goals to help lead the Oilers to a 4-2 come-from-behind victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Friday night.
Nurse scored the first Oilers goal of the game to cut into a 2-0 Coyotes lead late in the first period and then netted the go-ahead marker in similar fashion early in the third to break a 2-2 deadlock.

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The Oilers five-game road trip wraps up on Saturday against the Vegas Golden Knights. The game can be seen on CBC and Sportsnet across Canada and heard on the Oilers Radio Network, including 630 CHED. Puck drop is 8:08 p.m. MST.
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"It was good to let the slap shot go a couple of times there," Nurse noted. "It was nice to see us be resilient and come back. It could have been easy for us to say 'here we go again' and that wasn't the case. We continued to make plays and once goals started to go in we continued to play. That was a big step for us."
Only 3:03 into the game, Jakob Chychrun's shot from the point rang off the post behind Cam Talbot and the rebound went to Brad Richardson who put it into the open cage.
74 seconds later, the Coyotes scored again to double their lead. Christian Dvorak centred a pass to Josh Archibald who fired it past Talbot for the goal. After the goal, which was Arizona's second on two shots, Talbot was replaced between the pipes by Al Montoya.
"Bounces didn't go our way out of the gate but a lot of character on this team. The way we hung in there, battled back, got the two points. It goes a long way," said Montoya, who played the game's remaining 57 minutes and stopped all 19 shots he faced.
With 5:44 to go in period one, Ryan Strome and Jujhar Khaira skated down the ice on a two-on-one. Strome fed the puck to Khaira but the pass just missed the mark. The puck came back around to Nurse who ripped a shot from the left point top corner behind Coyotes starting goaltender Antti Raanta.
After that goal, the pressure kept coming as Oilers dominated zone time and fired shot after shot at Raanta. Eventually it paid off as the Oilers pulled back on even terms when Oscar Klefbom threaded a pass across the crease over to Pat Maroon who tapped it in with 37 seconds to play in the first.
"We can dwell on those two goals for four minutes or we can accentuate the fact we were resilient and came back to win the game," said Oilers head coach Todd McLellan. "People don't understand, I don't think, how hard it is to play night in and night out. It doesn't matter where somebody is in the standings. This Coyote team has beat some real good hockey teams lately and they gave us everything we could handle."
After one, shots on goal were 14-10 for the Oilers and in the second period not a whole lot happened on either side with the Coyotes outshooting Edmonton 5-4.
Nearly four minutes into the third, Draisaitl circled and fed Nurse at the left point and he one-timed a blast which was eerily similar to his first goal.
"Bullets. Stepping into the puck," McLellan said when asked to describe Nurse's goals. "Not looking for secondary opportunities. He took advantage of what was there. Sometimes our back-end knows they should be shooting but they want to look and analyze the field and then shoot. He didn't waste any time, he just pounded it."

The Coyotes tried to tie it up a couple minutes later but Montoya made a trio of great saves while sprawled out along the ice on Richardson and Martinook with the best stop being at the end of the sequence as Martinook tried to lift the puck over the Oilers netminder but to no avail.
The Oilers did not take a penalty until there was 3:49 remaining in the game. Milan Lucic took two minutes for tripping to set up the first Coyotes power play of the night. Oilers penalty killers were able to kill that one off, however.
With 38 seconds to go in the game, Ekman-Larsson dove to knock the puck away from an empty net as Draisaitl attempted to score with Raanta on the bench. 18 seconds later, Nugent-Hopkins completed a two-on-one with Lucic to make it a 4-2 final.
"It proves that we haven't rolled over and played dead but I haven't felt that from our group at all throughout the whole year," McLellan stated. "There's been some tough nights where games got away on us but the overall presentation of what the players give us when they come to practice and when they prepare, I haven't felt anybody rolling over and playing dead. Tonight they remained committed and were fortunate to come out with a win."