In Edmonton, it appeared a bit grim for the Oilers early in Game 4 on Wednesday night.
The Dallas Stars jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals from Wyatt Johnston and Esa Lindell.
Dallas was staked to a 1-0 lead with 58 seconds gone in the opening stanza. Johnston picked up a floater of a pass from Jamie Benn, and broke in for a shot form the left circle.
Lindell pushed the lead to 2-0 at 5:29 of the first, scoring off a wrist shot from the point.
“We got up 2-0, got the start we wanted, but I don’t think we had enough guys playing at a high enough level,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “The rest of the game they were the better team. That’s the bottom line.”
From there it was all Edmonton.
The Oilers scored five unanswered goals to take a 5-2 win, to tie the series, 2-2, headed to Dallas.
“We’ll reset here, going to learn from it, and we’ve got a great opportunity in front of us,” Dallas’ Jamie Benn said. “Best-of-3 on home ice here, so we’re looking forward to it.”
The Oilers’ Ryan McLeod trimmed the deficit to 2-1 at 13:30 of the first.
Stuart Skinner made 20 saves in the win.
“I was thinking it was going to be a long night,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Yeah, it didn’t look very good. Things weren’t going our way. They looked much sharper making plays.
“It wasn’t the start [we wanted], but you’ve seen this right through the series where both teams have absolutely dominated, and then the other team has dominated. Like, it’s been back-and-forth.”
He scored off an errant puck at the post.
Still in the first period, Evan Bouchard knotted the game, 2-2, at 16:17. of the first, He scored off a rebound of a shot by Connor McDavid.
Mattias Janmark put the Oilers ahead, 3-2, at 14:31 of the middle frame, scoring a shorthanded marker from the right circle.
“We’ve been confident lately, have a good kill in this series. So, we got them a little bit on their heels today, I think,” Janmark said. “We played to our structure there on the goal and we got a big block from Nurse.”1
The goal was a dagger to the Stars’ confidence.
“Yeah, that was kind of a kick in the butt,” Benn said. “Their PK’s good. I think they’ve been pretty good all playoffs. They put a lot of pressure on you and we’ll have to find a way to get a little creative here and try and break it down.”
Leon Draisaitl then added to the Dallas woes with a goal just 51 seconds later for a 4-2 lead. He scored off a rush up ice with Zach Hyman, hitting off a give0and-go.
“I think maybe we were a little sleepy for a couple minutes there (in the first period),” Draisaitl said. “… But we found our legs, got going a little bit, started to play our game. Stayed fresh, rolled lines, and obviously we’re a tough team to handle when we play that way.”
Mattias Ekholm hit an empty net with a long range strike for the Oilers’ zone at 18:07 of the third period for the 5-2 final count on the scoreboard.
Jake Oettinger made 24 saves in the loss.
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