In Edmonton, the Oilers trailed the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs by a 2-1 count entering the third period on Tuesday night.
The Oilers struck for three unanswered goals in a 4-2 win for their 11th straight win.
The Maple Leafs held a 2-0 lead in the middle frame before sitting back and watching the Oilers score four in a row.
With the win, the Oilers improved to 24-15-1
Stuart Skinner made 25 saves in the victory..
In the third period, Derek Ryan tied the game, 2-2, at 2:27.
Ryan McLeod hit for the game-winner with 3:05 left on the regulation clock for a 3-2 lead.
“I was looking pass the whole way. I drifted a little bit out and at the last second looked at the net and saw a little lane and took it and it went in,” said McLeod, who also had an assist after missing one game due to illness. “I just try to get to the net as much as I can, and luckily I got a little wrap and a little bit of room. Connor (McDavid) kind of pulled everyone to him, so it worked out well.
“It was a great atmosphere. They had a lot of fans in here too. It was high intensity. It was like a playoff game is. It was really fun.”
The Maple Leafs dropped to 21-13-8 off their fourth straight loss.
“Once again, you don’t find a way to win a game when you’ve got a lead and that burns here, especially on a night like this where I thought our guys played a really good hockey game,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “They played very hard. Ultimately, when you’re not scoring like we aren’t scoring here in this little stretch, you’ve got to find ways to win 2-1. And that’s tough to do, especially in this building against that team.”
Auston Matthews scored in the opening stanza to give the Leafs a 1-0 lead with 27 seconds of game fresh ice used.
“We did a lot of good things. We ran into a good team playing with a lot of confidence,” Matthews said. “It’s frustrating.
“Obviously we’d like to not be giving up these leads, but I think on the positive side, there’s a lot of good things that we are doing, and it’s just a matter of being consistent executing on some of these opportunities that we have later in games.”
Toronto extended the lead to 2-0 midway through the second period on a strike by Morgan Rielly.
Leon Draisaitl started the Oilers rally when he trimmed the deficit to 2-1 at 15:41 of the middle frame.
“I just didn’t see him shoot it. I was about to get up off my post and it just slipped in there,” Leafs goalie Martin Jones said. “Disappointing, obviously, when you lose giving up a lead. But it was a really good game.
“We did a lot of good things. The difference is executing on one play at the end of the game. They did and we didn’t.”
The Oilers’ Evan Bouchard hit an empty net at 18:27 for the 4-2 final count on the scoreboard.
“I thought it was a competitive, good hockey game,” Draisaitl said. “It’s a good team over there, lots of skill and they defend really well actually for how much skill they have. Obviously, we showed some composure again and stuck with it, so it’s another huge win for us.
“If you do it a couple of times and you win a couple of games late, you build trust in that and you build that level of comfort in knowing there’s no rush to open it up and score in the first minute of the third period to tie it up. I think it’s just a maturity level that we’re reaching that obviously needs to continue to develop and get better.”
Jones made 28 saves in the loss.
“Obviously [we’re ticked] off about it, but all these games we’ve been playing, we’ve played some really good hockey,” the Maple Leafs’ Mitchell Marner said. “We’ve just given them back. We’ve had a lot of chances to extend leads in games and haven’t done a good job of that.
“I thought we played pretty good defensively again tonight, but just a little slip up here and there. They’ve got a lot of skill that can make things happen.”
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