Oilers score twice late, defeat Capitals in shootout posted by Oilers Fan
Not since early November had the Edmonton Oilers won consecutive games.
On Tuesday, trailing by two goals with five minutes remaining in regulation, it seemed they would stumble into the All-Star break without that modest winning streak.
But the Oilers scored twice to tie it, and then defeated the Capitals 5-4 in a shootout for their second straight victory.
"We can definitely take some positives out of this," Oilers coach Todd Nelson said. "It was a good character win. The guys stuck with it, but there are also things we still have to work on. Our power play has to be better than it was tonight (1-for-6). We had plenty of opportunities to get back in the game. All in all I think there's a lot of room for improvement, but we're happy with the way the guys stuck with it."
"Throughout the year we've been strong [at protecting leads]," Beagle said. "We've been working on it and we were a lot better. In the last three games, we got away from it a little bit. I think we take our foot off the gas and kind of let teams creep back in. It's a learning process and we've just got to make sure we learn from it and make sure this doesn't happen again."
The Oilers were the more aggressive team in the third period, and the Capitals certainly played a part in Edmonton's 14-5 shot advantage. Washington committed three penalties in the period and five straight between the second and third.
"It was a pretty weird hockey game," Nelson said. "[Purcell's] goal really sparked our bench and gave us an opportunity to tie it up."
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