GAME RECAP: Oilers 6, Mammoth 3

EDMONTON, AB – What's bigger than a Mammoth?

How about that middle frame from the Edmonton Oilers?

Wearing their new alternate jerseys for the first time, the Edmonton Oilers scored five goals in the second period on Tuesday, snapping a seven-game win streak for the Utah Mammoth and their own two-game losing skid by earning a 6-3 comeback win at Rogers Place in the first of a three-game homestand.

After Logan Cooley and JJ Peterka scored early to give the Mammoth a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes, Mattias Ekholm and Isaac Howard responded quickly after the intermission by kicking off a five-goal middle frame for the cream-coloured Oilers with two goals 2:51 apart in the opening minutes of the stanza.

Leon Draisaitl and Ty Emberson then scored carbon-copy goals just 37 seconds apart later in the frame by burying big rebounds from Utah netminder Karel Vejmelka in the right circle, before Connor McDavid notched his first of two goals in the final three minutes of the middle frame to make it 5-3 for the hosts.

McDavid added an empty-netter with 2:46 left in regulation, and Stuart Skinner finished with 20 saves to earn his third victory of the campaign, which improved Edmonton's record to 5-4-2 this season.

"You don't want to put yourselves in these situations too often," said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who recorded an assist to extend his point streak to five games. "This league is so good. Every team can make you pay for that. But the way we responded is obviously a great sign, and it's something we've excelled at over the past few years. It's much more comfortable just to start well and kind of roll from there, but to be able to show up after a poor first period like that is a good sign for our team."

Defenceman Evan Bouchard also extended his point streak to five games after recording three assists, with six different Oilers recording multiple points in the victory, thanks to the help of their five-goal middle frame that helped flip the script against one of the hottest teams in the NHL that'd won seven straight.

Draisaitl finished with a goal and an assist to push his own personal point streak to six games, totalling nine points (5G, 4A) and registering his third straight game with multiple points.

The Oilers will look to keep things going when they continue their three-game homestand at Rogers Place on Thursday against the New York Rangers.

A 'MAMMOTH' TASK

With the help of a couple of breaks, Utah made it an uphill battle for the Oilers by taking a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes behind goals from two members of their strong offensive cast that's lit up the NHL early this season in Logan Cooley and JJ Peterka.

Winger Jack Roslovic struck the post on a strong individual rush near the 11-minute mark, but defenceman Darnell Nurse would bobble the puck at the other end while inside Edmonton's zone as his team changed, which led to Utah opening the scoring at 10:35 on a broken play.

Former Oil Kings forward and Edmonton product Dylan Guenther grabbed the loose puck, bobbled it himself and then turned inside the right circle before seeking out Cooley across the slot with a pass that was finished far side on Stuart Skinner inside the post to make it 1-0 on his eighth goal of the season.

"You're never going to eliminate [turnovers]," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "There are always going to be mistakes. The game is about mistakes, but you're just trying to limit the type of mistakes you're having. There have been too many easy freebies, and I think a lot of that has to do with just being ready and having the right amount of intensity."

"What I see is just not having the right amount of intensity or just readiness to make those plays, and you can't be too fired up. You need to be calm and present in the moment. But if you're too calm, then you just make the plays that we did today, or at least in the first period."

With 2:15 remaining in the period, the Mammoth doubled their lead after the puck hit the linesman along the boards in the neutral zone and fell into the path of Peterka, who came down the left side and sniped an unassisted marker short side over Skinner's blocker to give the German double-digit points this year.

"We just turned the puck over too much through the neutral zone, and it's been something that we keep talking about," Nugent-Hopkins said. "Unfortunately, we did it again in the first, but the way that we put pucks behind them in the second, we understood we could get the puck back if we do that and play with speed and everybody coming together. It was much better."

The Mammoth came into Tuesday's contest as winners of seven straight games, outscoring opponents 37-24 in their opening 10 games of the season, and they already had more combined goals in the first period than they did over two visits to Edmonton last season that ended in 7-1 and 4-1 defeats.

Over the first 20 minutes, the Oilers weren't happy with how badly they were getting outplayed by the Mammoth, and the message in the locker room from the coaches and players was 'enough is enough', and it was time to start playing like they know they can after a slow start to their season.

"I think everybody felt enough was enough," Ekholm said. "I can just go to myself. I haven't liked my game at all the last five or six games. I don't think many guys in here have. So it was coming to a point where we needed to start putting our work boots on, and kudos to us. We responded in that second period, but more importantly, we found our game, and that's got to be the standard going forward."

"It sounds silly, but simplicity," added Emberson. "We had 16 turnovers right at the blueline in the first period. In the second period, we did a lot better at just not feeding their transition. They're a good team over there, but we literally gave them everything that they had, so I think in the second period, we played more our style of game of just working hard and working it below the goal line."

MASSIVE MIDDLE-FRAME RESPONSE

It was a 'Mammoth' undertaking for the Oilers trailing 2-0 through 20 minutes, and it was going to take a heroic response.

Not one, not two, not three and not four goals, but FIVE in this middle frame.

The Oilers tied things up in the first four minutes of the period on a blast from Mattias Ekholm just 22 seconds into the frame, before Isaac Howard capitalized on a loose puck only 2:51 later to pick up his second career NHL goal off a terrific forecheck from Adam Henrique to force the puck in front for the rookie.

"It starts right away with Leo making a hell of an effort and Ekky finishing it off," Nugent-Hopkins said. "But that kind of got us going there, and obviously we kind of needed a bit of a wake-up in between the first and second. We had that a bit and I thought we responded well and kept it going from there. But that first period, we have much more than that, so it was good to see us respond."

Ekholm's tally was his first goal of the season before he'd notch an assist on Ty Emberson’s goal later in the period, while Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard recorded the assists to stretch their respective point streaks to six and five games. Howard's 2-2 equalizer marked the rookie forward's first career point at Rogers Place and his second goal in a week after scoring his first iin the League last Tuesday n a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators.

"I try to play as well as I can every game, but in some games, I just can't seem to find it," Ekholm said. "Evan and I turned the puck over too much. We thought maybe the game was a little bit easy, and it doesn't work that way. You have to earn our breaks, and especially the last 40 tonight, as a group and for myself, that's the level we have to be at."

After Barrett Hayton made the most of a bouncing puck behind the net over Skinner's stick just over five minutes later, leading to a lucky equalizer from the Mammoth, the Oilers struck twice in 37 seconds on near carbon-copy goals from Leon Draisaitl and Ty Emberson, tucking home huge rebounds from netminder Karel Vejmelka in the right circle to quickly put their side ahead 4-3 with under six minutes left in an exciting second period from the hosts.

"They were very similar, but I think Leon beat me on that one," Emberson said.

Draisaitl, who turned 30 years old on Monday, tied last October’s goal total (8G) with his eighth goal of the season before Emberson lit the lamp to give the Oilers the advantage less than a minute later off a direct result of Edmonton's defenders talking earlier about getting more involved in plays.

"Speaking of five-on-five scoring, we've been working on just trying to contribute in different ways, where sometimes you can sneak down if the other D-man slides to the middle. Ekky, in that case, slid to the middle. I could rotate down the backside and hopefully get lost, so just trying to find different ways to create scoring chances."

Emberson added, "I think it was just our mentality thing going into the game. We did some video in the last couple of days on some opportunities where the puck just didn't bounce to us, but the coach is just harping on us to keep doing that. It's an opportunity, it's a good spot, and tonight obviously we got some lucky bounces just with some pucks going right to us."

With their foot still firmly on the gas, the Oilers had their first multi-goal lead thanks to their top line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Connor McDavid and Andrew Mangiapane, who saved Edmonton's best for last in a five-goal middle frame with a terrific exchange from 93 and 97 in the last three minutes of the period.

McDavid turned with the puck at the top of the circle after Jake Walman poked it to him off a potential opportunity for the Mammoth to escape their zone, with the Oilers' captain exchanging passes with Nugent-Hopkins in the slot between the defending stick of Nate Schmidt and ripping it past Vejmelka.

All in all, it was a heroic response from the Oilers, with all five of their goals in the second period coming at even strength.

"Honestly, it was definitely nice just to get a couple and have that two-goal lead," Emberson said. "Going into the third, it was definitely nice just to have a little bit of breathing room, so that's always good."

McDAVID'S EMPTY-NET GOAL SEALS IT

The Mammoth had two looks on the power play to the Oilers' one in the third period, but the hosts weren't about to undo their hard work.

After two heroic kills from Edmonton's penalty kill in the final frame, McDavid capped off a 6-3 victory with an empty-netter with 2:26 remaining in regulation, giving the captain a two-goal game and the Oilers a massive come-from-behind win against one of the NHL's hottest teams.

Despite the Oilers struggling to find their footing early this season, their 5-4-2 start through 11 games is their best over the past three years, and there's plenty of belief this comeback performance could be the launchpad they need to really start gaining some traction on their regular season.

"I can stand here and say I knew if it was going to happen or not, but you never know," Ekholm said. "There have been greater teams than us that have played worse, so it's one of those things, I think that there is a quiet confidence in here. I don't necessarily think it was nervousness or panicking or anything like that just because we had a .500 start after 10 games, but you never know, right? And to be honest with you, this was one game. We need to follow this up on Thursday, so that's where I'll leave it."