EDMONTON — It was Taylor Hall‘s return to Edmonton, but the night belonged to Leon Draisaitl.
Draisaitl scored in overtime and added two assists as the Oilers snapped a two-game losing skid with a 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.
Connor McDavid earned his second assist of the game and his 50th point of the season, setting up a Draisaitl one-timer on a two-on-one just 1:50 into the extra period.
"With him you always have to be ready," Draisaitl said of the overtime pass from McDavid, who turns 20 on Friday. "He can make things happen out of nothing. What a nice pass. It was pretty easy to tap that one in.
"It’s a huge win. It’s basically playoff time for us right now. We need every single point."
Andrej Sekera and Patrick Maroon also scored for the Oilers (22-15-7), who played their second game of a six-game homestand.
Travis Zajac and Steven Santini responded for the Devils (16-18-9), who have lost four games in a row.
The game marked the return of Edmonton’s 2010 first-overall pick Hall, who was traded by the team in the off-season for defenceman Adam Larsson. Hall was welcomed with a video tribute at Rogers Place amid a standing ovation.
He wasn’t thrilled, though, with his team blowing a 2-1 lead in the third period and only skating away with a single point.
"Any time you have a lead in the third period, you’ve got to lock that up and find a way to (finish it)," Hall said. "I feel like we sit on leads sometimes and that’s not the way to go, especially against a team like that. There’s a way to sit on leads, there’s a smart way, and we didn’t do that.
"It’s definitely tough to take."
From his side of the equation, Larsson was happy to get wins in both appearances against his former team this season.
"I’m not going to lie, it feels pretty good," he said. "It’s a huge point for us. We want to get on the winning side now after two performances we weren’t really happy with."
The Devils took the lead with just 1:54 left in the first period when Kyle Palmieri sent a backhand pass through the crease and Zajac whacked his ninth of the season past Oilers goalie Cam Talbot.
Edmonton knotted the game back up just 16 seconds into the second period as Draisaitl dropped the puck back to Sekera and he beat New Jersey goalie Cory Schneider with a long wrist shot.
The Oilers came close to taking the lead eight minutes into the second, but Jordan Eberle hit the post on a two-on-one.
New Jersey got a break to go up 2-1 with 51 seconds left in the second, as a Hall shot hit Santini up high and caromed into the net to count as his first NHL goal.
Edmonton tied the game again with 7:24 remaining in the third, as Maroon tucked the puck past a sprawled-out Schneider during a scrum for his 17th of the season to send the game to extra time.
The Calgary Flames are the next opponent for both teams, with the Devils travelling to Calgary on Friday and the Flames then heading to Edmonton on Saturday.
Notes: It was the second and final meeting between the two teams this season. Edmonton won the previous contest 2-1 in overtime in New Jersey on Jan. 7…Inserted into the Devils lineup and making their NHL debuts were centre Blake Coleman and defenceman Karl Stollery, both called up from Albany of the American Hockey League… The Oilers also had a couple of recent AHL call-ups in the lineup in forwards Anton Slepyshev and Jujhar Khaira.
