BEARS BRING BAD NEWS
Oilers fall 3-2 to Bruins
The Edmonton Oilers have had a nightmare season but they’ve had some dream sequences.
They’ve only won 24 of 59 games, and entered the night in 26th place in the NHL standings, but they have defeated the three best teams in the league four times, which is why you should never buy a SportSelect ticket.
They looked like they were home free Tuesday night with a 2-0 lead on the visiting Bruins after 40 minutes.
But David Krejci finished off a three-goal, third-period rally with a minute left in a 3-2 Boston victory.
Noel Acciari and Matt Grzelcyk beat a valiant Cam Talbot earlier, with Acciari going off Matt Benning’s skate as the Oilers lost for the first time all year (13-0) when leading after two periods.
Talbot looked like last year’s Cam Talbot with a rock-solid game, making 41 saves, but he couldn’t hold off the Bruins, who refused to go away.
Bruins backup Anton Khudobin was beaten by Ryan Strome on the Oilers’ third shot in the game’s 18th minute and by Jujhar Khaira in the 31st minute on Edmonton’s ninth shot.
With Talbot holding the fort and getting lucky once when David Pastrnak rang one off the iron, Khaira scored on a harmless-looking play against the flow, popping into the open with Anton Slepyshev to give the Oilers a 2-0 lead.
The pass from Slepyshev was in Khaira’s skates but Khaira, who hadn’t scored in a month, kicked it up and sent a slingshot off the post and behind the startled Khudobin, who didn’t seem to pick up the puck at all.
In the first, the Oilers didn’t get a shot until 9:12 by Kris Russell and only had three in total on Khudobin but that was enough to score first for only the 21st time in 59 games.
Strome ripped a 30-footer through Khudobin’s legs for his second goal in as many games after going two months without one.