GAME RECAP: Oilers 4, Ducks 3 (Game 1)

EDMONTON, AB – Didn't quack under pressure.

Jason Dickinson and Kasperi Kapanen each scored twice for the Edmonton Oilers, who battled through adversity to score the late winner with 1:54 left in regulation on Monday night in a 4-3 victory over the Anaheim Ducks in Game 1 of their first-round series at Rogers Place.

Dickinson made it 3-3 with 8:30 left in regulation by notching his second of the game before Kapanen followed suit to deliver the game-winner with under two minutes remaining, overturning Anaheim's lead after they erased the pair's first-period tallies by scoring three unanswered goals in the middle frame.

"You're not always going to have your best game, but you want to play close to it," Kapanen said post-game. "It won't be easy to follow up a game like that, scoring two big goals, but I think just putting in the work and doing the little things that help this team out, whether it's on the PK or getting on the forecheck and being hard to play against, that's just kind of my process for what I'm trying to do out there."

Dickinson marked his return to the lineup with his first two playoff goals for the Oilers, along with Leon Draisaitl coming back to produce two assists in the victory in his first game since Mar. 15 after he missed the last 14 games of the season due to injury.

"You want to play in these moments, because it makes everything worth it," Dickinson said. "All the bumps, the bruises, the training, the hours spent away from the family doing things that your friends aren't doing because you've got something you're chasing, it's great to be a part of it. It's all about just going out there and competing with these guys and having fun doing it. That's really all it comes down to."

Vasily Podkolzin and Jake Walman also contributed two assists, while Mattias Ekholm and Ty Emberson produced single helpers to help the Oilers rally to victory in their first game of a new playoff campaign against a young Ducks squad.

Goaltender Connor Ingram made 25 saves for his first-career playoff victory, including two massive stops on Sennecke and Carlsson in the third period that allowed the Oilers to push on for the winner late in regulation.

The Oilers & Ducks will continue their first-round series on Wednesday with Game 2 at Rogers Place.

FIRST PERIOD

Playoff hockey is BACK in Oil Country, and what a reintroduction it was – especially for two impact returnees in Dickinson & Draisaitl who had a big hand in their strong start to Game 1 on Monday.

With the start of another run at the Stanley Cup, the Oilers flipped the switch to playoff mode and dominated the opening frame against the Ducks, outshooting them 13-4 and leading 2-0 through 20 minutes behind the energy of a rocking Rogers Place that the players felt as soon as they stepped onto the ice for warmups.

"It was amazing," Dickinson said. "I had to take a couple of deep breaths during the anthem to centre myself and come back down to earth, because the adrenaline was just pumping and you're feeling every bit of energy in that arena."

There were big cheers for Draisaitl during warmups after he was activated off LTIR earlier in the evening to return from his 14-game absence to end the regular season, and the German looked good early by setting up Jake Walman for a slap shot from the top of the circle on his first shift.

"I felt okay," Draisaitl said. "Certainly going to take a couple of games to really be myself and really trust myself again, but for a start, I thought it was okay."

Vasily Podkolzin came close to breaking the early deadlock on a breakaway created by Walman flipping the puck 100 feet into the neutral zone, but Lukas Dostal did enough to get his left toe after the Russian tried to slide it back across the Ducks' netminder.

The Ducks had their best chances midway through the frame, where they had a goal waved off for goaltender interference before Leo Carlsson cut inside and lost the handle on the puck before he could slide it inside the near post on Connor Ingram.

With all the pre-game talk about Draisaitl, it was all too quiet on Dickinson's return after he fought hard to get back into the lineup before his breakaway finish for the opening goal wound up blowing the roof off Rogers Place for the first time this playoffs.

"In my mind, there was no way I was not playing," Dickinson said. "Whatever I had to do, I was going to be out there. I got a taste of [playoffs] years ago, and man, it's fun. It's the best time of the year. You fight all year for this, and I was told early on that you got to savour it because you never know if you'll be back."

Walman fired a dart of a pass onto the tape of Dickinson to send him in with speed to dangle Dostal and fire the opening goal of the playoffs into the open net for the 1-0 advantage with 2:39 on the clock in the first period.

Dickinson missed the last four games of the regular season for the Oilers, but was back with a bang to open the scoring with his first playoff goal since Sept. 23, 2020, in his postseason appearance since the 2019-20 season as a member of the Dallas Stars.

"I just had to get my strength back into me and just work towards being able to play," Dickinson said of his recovery. "That was obviously the first step, being able to make sure that I was strong enough to battle and then to play like that. The results are because of my process and just keeping it simple, going to the net where good things happen.  That's really all it was. I just moved my legs and let the game come to me."

The Oilers weren't done before the intermission and doubled their lead exactly a minute later, when Draisaitl got on the scoresheet by finding Kasperi Kapanen wide open in the slot after some hard work by Podkolzin to win a race to the puck in the neutral zone.

After the Ducks escaped pressure, Podkolzin was quick in pursuit of the puck against Pavel Mintyukov at the blueline to work the puck loose to Draisaitl to create an odd-man scenario with Kapanen, who followed up his shot with a few swings at the rebound to double the lead on his ninth career playoff goal.

"When you have somebody like Leon settled back in the lineup and you get to play with him, good things usually happen," Kapanen said. "I think on both those goals, just good plays from Podz and Leo, so I was just happy to capitalize on them."

The only detractor from a strong opening frame by the Oilers was an injury to Adam Henrique, who left the game after coming in contact with one of his own teammates in front of Anaheim's net.

"Obviously, got tied up there in front of the net and obviously wasn't eligible to come back," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "We'll find out tomorrow exactly how long that injury is, but it's going to be a big hole to fill without Rico. He's been so good on our special teams, and obviously we're going to have other guys step up if we lose him, but we'll determine that later."

SECOND PERIOD

You can't let off for a moment against this young & exciting Ducks squad, who handed the Oilers their first taste of adversity in the playoffs with a three-goal second period.

Everything stellar about Edmonton's opening period was quickly undone in the first five minutes of the second, where the Ducks tied things up on tallies from Troy Terry and Leo Carlsson before taking their first lead off Terry's second goal that arrived half a period later courtesy of Anaheim's 1-for-2 man advantage.

"Just not our game," Draisaitl said. "Too many turnovers. Not hard enough on pucks, and then sometimes, it's just about simplifying a little bit. I thought we did a decent job after that."

The Ducks delivered only 19 seconds into the stanza on an easy rebound finish for Terry, putting away Carlsson's low effort off the pad of Ingram off a strong early zone entry by Anaheim defenceman Jackson LaCombe carrying over the blueline.

It was a similar scenario 4:19 later, when a rimmed puck from the Ducks found its way into the middle off the stick of Evan Bouchard to create another dangerous look for Terry that ended with Carlsson banging home the rebound from the same spot to make it 2-2.

Even with the return of Draisaitl helping its cause, Edmonton's power play went 0-for-2 in the frame, getting its best chance when Draisaitl's flick into the crease from behind Anaheim's net on their second opportunity ended up bouncing off skates in the blue paint and escaping any danger.

"Not our best, not our sharpest, but there's a couple of looks there where if I didn't miss a couple of weeks, I'd have been much cleaner on those," Draisaitl said. "So certainly, we'll chip away at it and better next game.

The Ducks found a way to capitalize on their own second opportunity with the man advantage when Darnell Nurse was guilty of a cross-check into the face of Mason McTavish after the whistle.

Terry earned his second goal of the night with a shot from the left circle that eluded a well-timed screen from Chris Kreider to beat Ingram inside the near post, completing the comeback for the Ducks to take a 3-2 lead on the Oilers after two periods in Game 1.

"I think we were maybe trying to do a little bit too much," Kapanen said. "The simplicity in our game is what was working early in the game.  It was a lot of just chip, chase and get on the forecheck, pressure their D, make them turn over pucks and then get pucks to the net. 

"We kind of got back to that in the third period, where we were skating, using our legs to get on the forecheck, forcing pucks and being a lot more connected as a group of five on the ice to move. Instead of trying to do it with one or two guys, everybody was moving in unison and advancing the puck to create more offence."

THIRD PERIOD

With only two directions to go after the Ducks' three goals in the second period, the Oilers took the path to victory after Dickinson and Kapanen led the charge in a heroic third-period comeback to seal the dramatic Game 1 victory.

On a night when the Oilers' big guns didn't find the back of the net, it took a big performance from a pair of their secondary scorers in Dickinson and Kapanen to bring it back to equal footing with under nine minutes left before the signature moment arrived with 1:54 remaining in regulation.

"It's everything this time of year," Draisaitl said of the team's depth. "Your top players have to be your top players, but you're not going anywhere if you don't have guys like that chipping in. We don't expect two goals from guys like that every night, of course, but you need that, and both of them played a heck of a game."

Amidst all the heroics in the third period from the Oilers, it was Ingram who was up to the task in keeping the Oilers within striking distance by coming down with an important save on Beckett Sennecke's fast attack before Dickinson was able to start the late rally.

Playing in his first-ever playoff game in Blue & Orange, Dickinson made the most of the moment by equalizing with his second tally of the night with 8:30 to go in regulation, after Ekholm took advantage of a blown tire from Radko Gudas while skating backwards to deliver a bomb that was finished on the rebound by Dickinson to make it 3-3.

That equalizer could've amounted to nothing if Ingram hadn't then made a vital save on an open look for Carlsson on a two-on-one with under five minutes left, standing up the young forward's clear-cut chance to allow the Oilers to push ahead for the go-ahead goal.

"Really good," Draisaitl said of Ingram. "Huge stop there in the third on that two-on-one. That's the game pretty much, so he gave us a chance and was big."

With momentum on their side, Kapanen played hero for the Oilers with 1:54 to go in regulation after the second line's hard cycle below Anaheim's goal line opened up space for Podkolzin to find his Finnish linemate alone in front.

After a marauding rush from Draisaitl to gain the zone, the German put the puck down low to Podkolzin, who found the stick of Kapanen in front to slide home his second goal & the game-winner under the left pad of Dostal with under two minutes left.

Kapanen now has eight points in the 13 career postseason games for the Oilers, including the game-winners tonight and in last year's Game 5 of their second-round series win over the Golden Knights.

The Ducks had one great opportunity to equalize with the net empty, as a puck went perilously into the crease before Terry's effort was crucially cleared by Bouchard, sending it away from harm before being cleared with 12 seconds remaining.

"That's a game-saver," Ingram said.

After earning his 50th career win and 100th NHL appearance in the regular season, Ingram's 11 saves in the third and 25 on the night helped the 29-year-old from Imperial, SK secure his first-ever playoff victory.

"It took me four tries, but I'll take it," he said. "It means a lot.  It's been cool.  It's been a wild year. These are small accomplishments along the way, and it's been fun and it's exciting to do it here."