Bouchard scores twice for Oilers in win against Ducks

ANAHEIM -- Evan Bouchard had two goals and an assist for the Edmonton Oilers, who scored all five of their goals in the second period of a 5-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Wednesday.

Leon Draisaitl had four assists and Connor McDavid had a goal and two assists for the Oilers (3-0-1), who rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the opener of a three-game California trip and won their third straight game. Devon Levi made 29 saves.

"That's a good team over there, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Draisaitl said of the Ducks. "But, when you feel that you don't have your legs, you feel like you're getting pushed into your own end by their speed a little bit — and we're all men, we all want to be better, we want to be at our best — and I thought we pushed back hard and we did it the right way."

Beckett Sennecke scored two first-period power-play goals and Leo Carlsson had two assists for the Ducks (2-1-0), who also scored all their goals with the man-advantage in a 3-2 overtime win against the visiting Florida Panthers on Sunday.

Lukas Dostal made 12 saves through two periods before he was replaced in the third by Ville Husso, who finished with two saves.

"In the three games, this is the first time we looked like we were in a watching mode, instead of the anticipating and the forcing mode," Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said.

Sennecke pushed the puck through Levi's pads from in close to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 4:11 of the first, then scored five-hole again when he redirected Carlsson's centering pass from below the goal line to make it 2-0 at 15:28.

"They were a little quicker to pucks in the first period," Draisaitl said. "I felt like they had their legs going right away and we were kind of searching for them early on. Those little one-on-ones around the wall, we kept losing them."

Bouchard scored with a slap shot from the right point 11 seconds into the second period to cut it to 2-1.

"After the first, we're like, 'You know what, what could possibly go more wrong, so just go out there and start working,' and we did," Oilers defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. "We got a good start, right off the bat, with a big goal, first shift, and just kept on plugging away from there."  

Kasperi Kapanen scored his 100th NHL goal with a one-timer from the bottom of the left circle while on a power play to tie it 2-2 at 6:30.

Bouchard scored his NHL-leading sixth goal of the season with a slap shot from above the circles to give the Oilers a 3-2 lead at 14:12.

"We came out flat at the start of the second and we can't do that," Sennecke said.

Draisaitl made a stretch pass to Vasily Podkolzin as he slipped behind the Anaheim defense and he scored on a breakaway to make it 4-2 at 16:49.

McDavid entered the Anaheim zone with speed and slipped the puck between Dostal's pads from above the left hash marks during 4-on-4 play to stretch the lead to 5-2 with 52 seconds left in the period. 

"They scored at the beginning of the period and the end of the period in the last minute," Quenneville said. "In between, we didn't do much. I think we watched a lot."

The Oilers committed two minor penalties 45 seconds apart in the closing minutes, and the Ducks pulled Husso for a 6-on-3, but couldn't capitalize. 

NOTES: Bouchard reached 10 points in the fourth game of the season, joining Pat Stapleton of the Chicago Blackhawks (1968-69), Harry Cameron of the Toronto Arenas (1917-18), Morgan Rielly of the Toronto Maple Leafs (2018-19) and Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins (1975-76) as the only NHL defensemen to hit that mark in four games or fewer. ... McDavid has at least 10 points through four games for the fourth time in his NHL career and leads the NHL with 12 points (three goals, nine assists). ... Podkolzin stretched his point streak to four games (four goals, two assists). ... Ducks forward Nikita Klepov, the No. 15 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, had five hits in 10:03 of his NHL debut. At 18 years, 102 days, he's the youngest to play for Anaheim in team history, surpassing Oleg Tverdovsky, who was 18 years, 248 days when he played against the Winnipeg Jets on Jan. 21, 1995. ... Carlsson has seven points (one goal, six assists) through the first three games. He's the first player in team history with three straight multipoint games to start the season. … Edmonton has scored at least five goals in three of its four games and leads the NHL with 5.5 goals per game. … Bouchard’s 82 career goals are the third most for an Oilers defenseman, behind Paul Coffey (209) and Darnell Nurse (88).