{"id":557101,"date":"2026-04-21T06:24:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557101\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T06:24:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T06:24:34","slug":"kapanen-nets-two-draisaitl-returns-as-oilers-outlast-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/557101\/","title":{"rendered":"Kapanen nets two, Draisaitl returns as Oilers outlast Ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON, Alberta — Kasperi Kapanen<\/a> scored his second goal with 1:54 left in the third period to give the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> a 4-3 victory<\/a> over the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> in the opener of their first-round playoff series Monday night, a game in which star forward Leon Draisaitl<\/a> returned from injury.<\/p>\n

Jason Dickinson<\/a> also scored twice for the Oilers, who trailed 3-2 entering the third.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl returned to the ice after missing the final 14 regular-season games with a lower-body injury. Draisaitl and Jake Walman<\/a> each had two assists for Edmonton.<\/p>\n

“I felt OK. Certainly going to take a couple games to really be myself, and really trust myself again,” Draisaitl said. “But for a start, I thought it was OK.”<\/p>\n

The Oilers are seeking their third consecutive trip to the Stanley Cup Final, having lost each of the last two seasons to the Florida Panthers<\/a>, who missed out on postseason play this year.<\/p>\n

Troy Terry<\/a> had two goals and an assist and Leo Carlsson<\/a> also scored for the Ducks, who are in the playoffs for the first time since 2018. Lukas Dostal<\/a> stopped 30 shots for Anaheim.<\/p>\n

Connor Ingram<\/a>, making his first postseason start for the Oilers made 25 saves, including a doozy in the waning seconds, to earn the win.<\/p>\n

“It’s loud in there. After the anthem, one thing I always do is smile and take it all in,” Ingram said. “That was one today where I was like, ‘this is cool.'”<\/p>\n

Game 2 is Wednesday night at Rogers Place.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, this wasn’t our best, wasn’t our sharpest,” Draisaitl said of the team’s performance, especially on a power-play unit that went 0-for-2. “But certainly, we’ll chip away at it, and be better next game.”<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON, Alberta — Kasperi Kapanen scored his second goal with 1:54 left in the third period to give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[62877,2210,233,5292,62876,1739,146,266,5,40,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-557101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim-ducks","8":"tag-62877","9":"tag-anaheim","10":"tag-anaheim-ducks","11":"tag-anaheimducks","12":"tag-draisaitl-leon","13":"tag-ducks","14":"tag-edmonton-oilers","15":"tag-espn","16":"tag-hockey","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116441269224284431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}