GAME RECAP: Oilers 6, Canadiens 5

EDMONTON, AB – Are you not entertained?!

In a crazy all-Canadian clash at Rogers Place, the Edmonton Oilers scored three goals in the third period after giving up three of their own to the Montreal Canadiens in the middle frame, with winger Vasily Podkolzin notching the game-winner with 1:09 remaining in regulation of a 6-5 victory on Thursday night.

After David Tomasek's first NHL goal and tallies from Adam Henrique and Andrew Mangiapane put the Oilers up 3-1 with six-and-a-half minutes left in the second, the Canadiens scored three goals in 1:52 ahead of the intermission before Alex Newhook made it 5-3 with his second of the game early in the third.

Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each scored their fifth goals of the season on back-to-back power plays for the Oilers midway through the final stanza before Podkolzin capped off an incredible contest with a terrific backhand finish past netminder Sam Montembault in the final two minutes of play.

"You want to keep building on what we did right offensively, so you try to take the good with the bad here," Nugent-Hopkins said. "But obviously, there's a lot we can clean up and we'll address some stuff tomorrow."

The dramatic victory gives the Oilers back-to-back wins after ending a three-game losing streak in the final game of their lengthy five-game road trip after defeating the Ottawa Senators 3-2 in overtime on Tuesday night in the nation's capital.

"We've definitely got to find it here," Nugent-Hopkins said. "There's so much hockey coming up, so there's no time to think about it and there's not going to be a whole lot of practices to work on things. It's going to be a mentality, and we need to address it right away. I thought tonight was just lacklustre to start, and we found a way to get it done. But we know there's a lot more in this room."

Oilers captain Connor McDavid had three assists, while defencemen Jake Walman and Darnell Nurse each had two helpers.

Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook each scored twice for the Canadiens, who'd won six of their past seven games prior to Thursday's wild one in Oil Country after defeating the Calgary Flames the previous night in the first of back-to-back games.

The Oilers head back out on the road for a back-to-back of their own when they pay a visit to the Seattle Kraken and Vancouver Canucks this weekend.

ANOTHER FIRST NHL GOAL

Your turn, David Tomasek.

After it was Isaac Howard on Tuesday night in Ottawa getting on the scoresheet with his first tuck in the NHL, the Czech was next to record his first tally in the League when his lucky bounce off the skate of Alex Newhook made him the third Oiler this season to find the back of the net for the first time – the third being centre Noah Philp, who picked up an assist on the play to give himself three points (two goals) in his last four games.

With the Oilers trailing 1-0 in the final four minutes of the first period, Philp wrapped a dump-in around the boards to Vasily Podkolzin on the other side, who turned and fired a pass across the ice to Tomasek coming over the blueline to take a low slapshot against netminder Sam Montembault with traffic scattered between himself and Montreal's net.

Newhook scored Montreal's opener at 7:28 of the first period, but the winger had the unfortunate feeling of scoring at both ends when Tomasek's effort struck his skate in front of the crease and slowly drifted in after it was heading wide of the net. Philp looked like he might've got a touch to it, but he was certain to let Tomasek know it was his goal when they came together for the celebration.

Tomasek is the fourth Oiler in the past two games to score his first goal of the season – joining McDavid, Howard and Walman.

"We were fortunate early in the game to get the goals that we did," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "We had three goals on just a handful of chances in the third period. We created a little more, and we were able to feel good about scoring goals. You can't shoot four or five percent all the time. You've got to be able to find some easy goals and get a bounce like Tommy's goal, but we need to continue to work and press like we did in the last 10 minutes of the third period."

Tomasek led the Swedish Hockey League last season in points (57) and assists (33) with Färjestad BK, and tonight's marker will hopefully be the first of many for the 29-year-old wearing an Oilers uniform, having already recorded his first NHL point with an assist on opening night against the Calgary Flames.

A FORCE OF 'HABIT'

Both the Oilers & Canadiens had productive spells in the second period, dominating play and scoring multiple goals in short spans over a five-goal frame.

The difference was, however, that Montreal scored three of those goals in less than two minutes late in the frame, after the Oilers were looking comfortable off quick strikes from Adam Henrique and Andrew Mangiapane to give themselves a 3-1 lead with 6:32 left in the middle stanza.

Henrique, fresh off playing his 1,000th NHL game in Tuesday's 3-2 win over the Senators, put a terrific deflection on Jake Walman's chest-high shot with 9:23 gone in the middle frame to give the Oilers a 2-1 lead on his second goal of the season, with Mattias Ekholm picking up the secondary assist.

Walman's helper gave him points in back-to-back games after the 29-year-old blueliner scored the overtime winner in his season debut in Ottawa following a six-game injury absence to begin the year.

Things continued to look promising for the Blue & Orange, adding to their lead 2:51 later when Darnell Nurse missed a back-door tap-in from Connor McDavid, but quickly corralled the bounce off the wall and chipped it in front for Mangiapane to score his third goal in three home games this season.

"I missed the back-door tap-in, and then I remembered there was a guy in the slot, so I just wanted to put it there for him," Nurse said.

Just about three-and-a-half minutes later is when the Habs turned this all-Canadian contest in their favour.

Winger Josh Anderson scored the first of three goals in 1:52 for the Canadiens to close out the second period by sniping Brenden Gallagher's pass from below the goal line into the top shelf on Pickard from in front of the crease after Pickard had done some heavy lifting in the Oilers' crease to this point.

Cole Caufield made a nice move to dangle Pickard on the rush 1:03 later, tucking it inside the right post after dragging the netminder out of position to tie the contest, before he gave his side a shock 4-3 advantage only 49 seconds later with a snap shot under the arm of Pickard from the right circle.

"We found a way to get ourselves a lead in the second, and then all of a sudden, we just stopped playing for a bit," Nugent-Hopkins said. "That's a high-powered team where if you give them looks and let them feel good, they're going to capitalize, and it just wasn't good enough."

The Oilers had 35 seconds of power play time to end the period when Mike Matheson interfered with Mangiapane, which they couldn't capitalize on as the Canadiens took an unexpected one-goal lead into the intermission. If the hosts were going to have any sort of answer in the final frame, they were going to need their man advantage to help form a response – like it has so many times over the past few seasons.

POWERING BACK UP

The second period not crazy enough for you? Buckle up.

We were in for a wild final 20 minutes at Rogers Place.

The Oilers could've easily just washed their hands with this one and moved on after the Canadiens continued their magic from the middle frame after Alex Newhook made it 5-3 just over two minutes into the third period with his second goal of the game, but Montreal's parade to the penalty box gave them an opening – and you can't do that against the team with historically one of the NHL's best-ever power plays.

Matheson's late interference call in the second period and Juraj Slavkovsky's boarding call on Ty Emberson 3:10 into the final frame didn't provide the goals the Oilers needed, but another infraction for Matheson – this time for tripping up McDavid past the midway mark of the frame – produced Leon Draisaitl's much-needed answer.

McDavid found his favourite target wide open in front from below the Montreal goal line, with the German dispatching his fifth goal of the season far side on Sam Montembault to make it 5-4 for the Canadiens with 8:41 to go in regulation as the Oilers continued to try and reverse their middle-frame misdealings.

While the Oilers celebrated making it a one-goal game, Anderson was called for unsportsmanlike conduct after banging his stick in front of the official in protest, sending the hosts back to the power play where Ryan Nugent-Hopkins completed the comeback just over a minute into the ensuing advantage.

The longest-tenured Oilers' player carried the puck through the neutral zone off the feed from Evan Bouchard and moved it to McDavid coming over the blueline, before No. 93 carried his line all the way to the net and received a return feed behind Montreal's defence that he backhanded over the left shoulder of Montembault to make it 5-5 with his fifth goal of the season.

"Maybe some breaks tonight," Nugent-Hopkins said of the power plays. "I don't know about the calls themselves, but if you get an opportunity like that, especially in the situation we were in, you gotta take advantage and I'm happy that we did that. I think just sticking with it was a big thing. We didn't score on the first couple, but we tried to outwork them and tried to keep creating plays, and eventually it paid off for us."

With under eight minutes left in regulation for someone to find the winner, someone was going to be the hero – and his name was Vasily Podkolzin.

PODZ PLAYS HERO!

In a crazy all-Canadian contest, it was Podkolzin's moment that earned the Oilers all two points late in regulation at Rogers Place.

With all the momentum back on their side from erasing a two-goal deficit with the help of their power play, the Oilers pressed on for the late winner, receiving the dramatic late go-ahead tally from Vasily Podkolzin at even strength with 1:09 left in regulation.

After Nurse found the Russian forward with a quick pass while backed up against Matheson in front of Montreal's crease, Podkolzin shrugged off the pressure and rolled to his left before delivering the perfect backhand top shelf beyond Montembault to make it 6-5 for the Oilers – ultimately capping off a wild matchup after the Canadiens couldn't make anymore magic happen in the final minute of play.

"I never practiced the pass from the blue line and backhand. I'm not Malkin or a guy like him," Podkolzin joked. "But it's unbelievable the process and just little details sometimes; little tips and things like that will help to score an extra two or three goals in a season.

Podkolzin said he's not like Malkin, but he was reminded of one of the Russian's all-time great goals that he scored against the Oilers back in 2009 with an incredible spin-o-rama, stripping the puck from Oscar Klefbom and spinning a backhand bar down on netminder Anders Nilsson.

"I saw how he scored against the Oilers like 10 years ago on the spin-o-rame backhand," he said. "I'm not like that, but that was a nice goal."

Podkolzin's goal wasn't just an important goal for the Oilers – it was the 24-year-old's first tally since the tragic passing of his father during the preseason, making it an even bigger feel-good story for him after also picking up an assist on Tomasek's first NHL goal in the first period.

"First of all, thank you guys for all the support I got on social media and everywhere," he said. "Thank you to the Oilers for letting me be with my family through that tough time, and I'd been in touch with the guys from the team every day, and they all asked and cared about me. I felt a lot of support from them, and thank you guys. Thank you to the fans. It's pretty sad and a huge loss for me and my family. But right now, just playing with a good memory of him and making him proud every day.

"He always wanted me to win a Cup, and unfortunately, he won't see it. But he'll see it another way on the other side. Just thank you guys. That was a tough month, to be honest. I wasn't feeling pretty good, but you guys and my teammates sure make it easier. They were both around me every day. Just awesome support, and I can't be more thankful."

The victory gives the Oilers two important points and back-to-back victories since ending a three-game losing streak in Ottawa on Thursday – though there's a strong understanding in the locker room that this wasn't a pretty one, and there's plenty for each of the players to improve upon.

"It was as ugly a win as it gets," Nurse said. "We got the two points. I think our team game obviously gets better when each of us gets better individually, so we've got some work to do."

"It's apparent there are a lot of guys who have been around for a while, played in some important situations and important games, and you're not going to fool yourself that there's a process to winning in this league. Like I said, I think our process hasn't been where it needs to be."