Oilers' Yamamoto scores in last minute in 5-4 win over Blues

ST. LOUIS -- — Kailer Yamamoto scored in the final minute as the Edmonton Oilers beat the St. Louis Blues 5-4 Sunday night.

Connor McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan McLeod also scored for Edmonton, which won in St. Louis for the first time since Dec. 5, 2018.

Mikko Koskinen made 35 saves as the Oilers improved to 11-3-0 on the season.

“He was excellent,” Oilers coach Dave Tippett said of Koskinen. “We didn't defend very well in front of him, and they throw a lot of pucks around that net, so he had to make some big saves for us.”

Vladimir Tarasenko, Ivan Barbashev, Jordan Kyrou and Robert Bortuzzo scored for the Blues. Jordan Binnington had 27 saves, but St. Louis lost its third straight game.

“We’ve got to be better at knowing the situations," Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We played the two top teams in the league and I thought we played with them both games. We ended coming out on the wrong end of it, but our team didn’t quit and we battled.”

Yamamoto's third goal of the season came on a feed from Draisaitl with just 28 seconds remaining to put Edmonton up 5-4 in what had been a back-and-forth game.

“It's huge," Yamamoto said, "Any time you can get a game-winning goal, it's huge. I'm definitely going to try and build off that.”

Edmonton was leading 4-2 going into the third period. Barbashev scored his fourth goal of the season, roofing a pass from Robert Thomas past Koskinen at 4:06 into the frame that initially appeared to have hit the crossbar. Play was stopped after about 40 seconds when video review revealed that the goal was good, cutting Edmonton's lead to 4-3.

Tarasenko then scored his seventh goal of the season nearly four minutes later to tie the game at 4. He has a goal in three straight games.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put Edmonton up 3-2 when he scored his first goal of the season on a feed from Draisaitl with 3:49 remaining in the second period. Eight seconds later, McLeod scored his first NHL goal to increase the Oilers' lead to 4-2.

“It was a pretty surreal moment,” McLeod said. “The puck kind of was going to the net and I was kind of coming down the middle and it popped out and I took a backhander, and the guys put their arms up. I honestly couldn't really even see it go in.”

Kyrou delivered his sixth goal of the season on a one-timer from Pavel Buchnevich with 6:42 remaining to give St. Louis its first goal of the game.

McDavid tied the game 1-1 when he scored his 10th goal of the season with just five seconds remaining in opening period as he has now earned at least one point in each of the Oilers’ 14 games this season.

“Late goals, those are killers," Thomas said. “End of periods, they change the momentum of the game."

McOFFENSE

McDavid’s first period goal was his 600th career point in his 421st career game, making him the sixth-fastest player to reach the milestone. Wayne Gretzky holds the NHL record of scoring 600 points in his first 274 games. Gretzky is also the only Oilers player to record a season-opening points streak longer than McDavid’s 14 games.

UP NEXT

Oilers: At Winnipeg on Tuesday night to close a five-game road trip.

Blues: Host Arizona on Tuesday night.

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