It wasn’t pretty, but the Edmonton Oilers won back-to-back games.

On Monday evening, the Oilers hosted the Anaheim Ducks for the fifth game of their eight-game home stand. Like Saturday, it was another high-scoring game, as the Oilers defeated the Ducks 7-4 in thanks to Mattias Ekholm’s hat trick. Let’s take a look at what went on in this one!

Three and a half minutes into the game, the Anaheim Ducks took the lead with a power play goal. Evan Bouchard failed to clear it, and after a handful of passes, Mikael Granlund got in behind Bouchard and was able to beat Tristan Jarry above the blocker from the faceoff dot.

On a power of their own late in the first period, the Oilers managed to find the game-tying goal. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins received a pass down low with no one on him, giving the longest-tenured Oiler all the time in the world to pass it over to Zach Hyman. The power forward won a battle for position in the crease and was able to tap it in for the goal.

Within the first minute of the second period, the Ducks restored their lead. On a seemingly harmless play, the Oilers committed three players behind the net. Ryan Poehling won the puck battle and got it out front for Alex Killorn, who beat Jarry for the 2-1 lead.

Then, the Oilers exploded for four goals in under four minutes. Just over four and a half minutes into the second period, Spencer Stastney attempted a pass to the slot, but instead of finding an Oilers’ stick, he banked the puck off Olen Zellweger’s skate into the back of the net for his first as an Oiler.

The Oilers added a second goal about two minutes later. Connor McDavid got the zone entry, passed it over Mattias Ekholm who was driving up the middle of the ice. The Oilers defenceman made a nice no-look pass to Hyman, who found Ekholm all alone in front of the net for a tap-in. A very nice goal.

Just over a minute later, the Oilers extended their lead to two. A Duck tripped on a zone entry, sending the Oilers back on a three-on-one. Darnell Nurse elected to shoot the puck, going short-side on Ville Husso to make it 4-2 for the Oilers.

Less than a minute later, the Oilers scored again, as the Ducks blew an odd-man rush opportunity. The Oilers forced a turnover, and Matthew Savoie and Ekholm had a two-on-one. Ekholm was patient with the puck, firing it top shelf on the glove side to make it 5-2. Granlund scored another power play goal with a little over six minutes remaining in the second period.

Granlund completed the power play hat trick with just over six minutes left in the third period to cut the Oilers’ lead to one. The puck took an unfortunate bounce off a skate and deflected top shelf. Jarry wasn’t in a great position to save this shot. Thankfully, McDavid was able to ice the game with an empty netter, and Ekholm was able to hit his hat trick on an empty-net of his own moments later.

The big story of the last two games has been scoring from the Oilers’ defence. Three of the six goals on Saturday came from defenceman Evan Bouchard, the first hat trick for an Oilers’ defender since 2006. Well, they got four goals from defencemen in this game over three minutes, two from Mattias Ekholm, one from Darnell Nurse, and one from Spencer Stastney, his first as an Oiler.

In fact, the Amazon Prime broadcast noted that this was the first time since November 19, 2000, that a team has gotten four goals from defencemen in the same period. That was done by the Anaheim Ducks, and it’s only been done five other times. Moreover, the four goals in three minutes and 49 seconds is the quickest a team has gotten four goals from a defenceman. Over their last two games, seven of the 12 goals have been scored thanks to the Oilers’ back end.

It’s not often you see a hat trick from each team in the same game, but that happened in this one thanks to Mikael Granlund’s three power play goals and Ekholm’s first career hat trick. After not getting a hat trick from a defenceman in over 20 years, the Oilers have gotten back-to-back hat tricks from defencemen in their last two games. That’s the first time in NHL history.

The Oilers’ first goal was scored by Zach Hyman, giving him 21 goals and 35 points in 35 games. Since November 29, Hyman has scored all 21 of those goals in just 28 games. It’s incredible how productive Hyman has been since joining the Oilers.

Before Monday’s game, the Oilers called up German centre Josh Samanski, who made his debut in this game. Between Matthew Savoie and Jack Roslovic, Samanski came oh so close to scoring his first career goal, as he just didn’t put enough mustard on the shot.

Mentioning Savoie, he picked up an assist on Ekholm’s second goal, giving him two goals and four points over his last six games. The rookie seems to be heating up after picking up two assists in his previous 14 games. He did take two bad penalties though.

After scoring twice and picking up three assists in Saturday’s 6-5 win over the Washington Capitals, Connor McDavid was held to an assist and an empty net goal in this game. The Oilers captain went down hard while driving the net, then received his second penalty shot of the season just seconds later. He was stopped on the most exciting play in hockey.

Defending McDavid on the play where he went hard into the boards was Ducks defenceman Jackson LaCombe. He also laid a heavy hit on Hyman and Mattias Janmark late in the third period. He’ll be a darn good player for the Ducks.

The Oilers were heavily outplayed in this game, as they were out-shot 40 to 32, with the Ducks having 2.93 expected goals to the Oilers 1.74 expected goals. Overall, Jarry stopped 36 of 40 shots for a .900 save percentage. Not too often you see four goals allowed and a .900 save percentage.

According to Natural Stat Trick, the two lines with an expect goal share above 50 percent was the third line of Roslovic, Samanski, and Savoie (53.51 percent of the expected goals) and the fourth line of Trent Frederic, Curtis Lazar, and Janmark, who had 55.99 percent of the expected goals.

It was a tough game for the Oilers penalty kill, as three of the four goals the Ducks scored came on the power play, all courtesy of Mikael Granlund. The penalty kill has to be better moving forward.

As they say, the 10th time is the charm, as this is the Oilers’ 10th two-game winning streak. They’ll look to become the 32nd team to register a three-game winning streak this season, as they host the San Jose Sharks on Thursday at 7:00 PM MT.