Oilers win!

In Edmonton, the Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl hit for a pair of goals and four points in a 5-3 win over the Calgary Flames.

The two goals came in the third period after the two teams went through two periods of play tied at 3-3.

The win snapped an ugly seven-skid.

Perhaps Draisaitl will be less defensive in future interviews.

“Obviously it feels great; losing is awful, it [stinks], it’s not fun and it feels like there is always a cloud around you when you are losing,” Draisaitl said. “And obviously, we’re not where we want to be yet, but this is the first step and we have to start it at some point, [Koskinen] was amazing and it was a total team effort.”

Maybe not.

Evan Bouchard scored also twice for the Oilers.

“The guys worked hard and I’m happy for them,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said. “You can tell there is a relief, but there is a happiness. When you lose, people don’t realize the toll it takes on you when you lose. When you lose, it’s hurting everybody, so it’s good to see them feel good about it tonight, and hopefully, it’s a night we can use to start building ourselves back up again.”

Mikko Koskinen made 44 saves in the needed win.

“I think it is my top save in the NHL,” Koskinen said. “When you think about the situation and where we are, we really needed the win and we got it so we have to be happy for that.”

Edmonton improved to 19-16-2.

“We did what we wanted, you just have to finish opportunities,” Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said. “Those big guys [Draisaitl and McDavid], if you make one little mistake and they’re going to come, and knowing full well with penalties, you just can’t take them, they’re at 30-some percent [on the power play] and they score one in three, is the way it works.”

Noah Hanifin and Matthew Tkachuk scored for the Flames.

“Obviously we’re not happy, that’s not what we came here to do, we came here for the win and didn’t get it,” Tkachuk said. “We did some good things, but ultimately, not enough good things. It was good to get one on the power play and they got two quick ones in the second and they had all the momentum, but we got one before the third and had a great penalty kill to start the third period.

“We should have gained some momentum, I thought we did and had some chances. We had some chances when it was 2-0 and we just have to capitalize and extend our lead and not keep a team like that in it, and we did, and they found a way to get some and they came out with the win.”

Calgary fell to 18-12-6.

“It’s very disappointing, we did a lot of things right, we created a lot of chances and in the third period, we spent the majority of the time in the O-zone and only gave up six shots in the third period,” Calgary’s  Milan Lucic (goal) said. “It’s disappointing, especially with the effort that we gave and how well we played. It’s one of those things, they get life on the power play and they get themselves back in it and we deserved better than the result that we got.”

Brendan Perlini scored a single marker for Edmonton.

Jacob Markstrom made 26 saves in the Flames loss.