Oilers tie it late, down Sharks, 5-4, in OT Nurse wins it for Oilers in extra time

In Edmonton, Mathias Ekholm scored with less than four minutes left in the third period to rally the Oilers for a 4-4 tie on Monday night, and force extra time with the San Jose Sharks.In the extra session Darnell Nurse  scored 15 seconds left in the session for a 5-4 win to the Oilers, for this fourth straight win.

“The guys are always joking in here that I get quite a few [breakaways] and never score,” Nurse said. “That feels like the first one in a while. That was a once-in-a-blue-moon thing, I’m not going to start doing that.”

Jack Campbell made 28 saves in the Oilers win.

“I liked our willingness to win and our ability to find a win when an [opposing] goaltender was having a great night,” Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. “We didn’t play the game we wanted to play in the first two periods, but we knew what the stakes were, and you have to give our players credit for finding a way to get those two points. But nobody is blind to the fact we have to fix some things.”

The two teams traded goals in the first period with the Sharks taking a 1-0 lead on a strike from Alexander Barabanov, the Oilers replied with a marker from Nick Bjugstad

Edmonton improved to 40-23-8.

Kailer Yamamoto  scored with 30 seconds of fresh ice used in the middle frame for a 2-1 lead to the Oilers.

The Sharks dropped to 19-37-15 off their seventh straight loss.

“They’re one of the best teams in the League who have an awful lot of firepower, and I thought we competed our [rear ends] off,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “We’re in a different situation from an organizational standpoint than they are.

“Our goalie played great and I thought we did a lot of good things tonight. It just wasn’t enough. We almost got to the shootout, and anything can happen in a shootout situation. I just really liked our compete and our effort.”

Steven Lorentz scored, and Erik Karlsson added the first of his double on the night for a 3-2 lead to the Sharks in the second stanza.

“They were good plays at the right time, and I think we need a bit more of that,” Karlsson said. “I think at least today, we scored some goals. We got some taken away, but if you want to win hockey games in the League today, that’s what you have to do (score).”

Ekholm scored his first of the game to tie it, 3-3.

“We could have been a lot better tonight, I thought,” Ekholm said. “But at the same time, these games are hard, you have to work yourself up and you have to get yourself going. We snuck it out, we could have been better, but it’s hard to win in this league, so we’ll take it and move on.”

Karlsson hit for his double to give the Sharks a 4-3 advantage headed to the third.

James Reimer made 46 saves in the loss.

“The rebound popped out and we talked about how they like to sling it to the backdoor, and I was kind of off-balance, and I saw him pass it back to Draisaitl,” Reimer said. “I just tried to get something on it and lucky enough he hit me. It was one of those where you’re lucky to get one of those bounces and it was nice.”