Leon Draisaitl had a goal and two assists, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a goal and an assist and Connor McDavid had two assists for Edmonton, which is the No. 3 seed from the Pacific Division. Stuart Skinner made 22 saves.
“Obviously we let down our guard for five or six minutes, got into some penalty trouble. They were coming out hot, momentum kind of shifted for them in that moment and obviously it bit us. We let it slip for a little bit,” Skinner said. “It’s a tough pill to swallow. You just can’t be doing that, especially at playoff time, especially against a team like this, they know how to score goals.”
The Oilers brought a 3-1 lead into the third period before Heiskanen cut the lead to 3-2 on the power play when his shot from the point got past a screened Skinner 32 seconds into the period to start the comeback.
“Going into the series, knew that special teams was going to be a big part of it. Tonight with them getting three [power-play goals] in the third period, obviously that changes some things. Even after they got the first one, you could just see our guys felt really good before and after we just took a step back,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “They get that one shot through that ends up being a goal, and that changes the momentum. They feel better about their game, they’re only chasing by one, and then it’s another penalty that we can’t kill.”
Granlund scored the second power-play goal of the period to tie it 3-3 at 3:49 on a shot from the top of the right face-off circle and Matt Duchene made it three straight Dallas power play goals when his shot banked in off Nugent-Hopkins in a netfront scramble for a 4-3 Dallas lead at 5:58.
“We have to kill better. It’s as simple as that. They have a good power play, but when we’re playing the way we can, and we’ve shown it in the playoffs, our penalty kill can be very good, too,” Edmonton defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “We have to be better in that department, all of us, to a man. Whether it’s a won battle, a clear, a block, whatever play has to be made on the [penalty kill], we have to make it and we didn’t do that enough tonight.”
Draisaitl scored at 10:19 in the first period to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead on a shot from the bottom of the right face-off circle that beat Oettinger far-side corner.
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