Leon Draisaitl experiences season's worth of emotions in Oilers 4-3 overtime loss

In a game with many storylines, the saddest of the night was written all over the face of Leon Draisaitl.

The Oilers star centre went through a season's worth of emotions in a single night. After it was over, he carried the full weight of his team's 4-3 overtime loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on his young shoulders.

"I'm pretty disappointed in myself," Draisaitl told reporters in the locker room, after his team earned a single point in regulation time. "I cost us the other point, and that's really all there is."

That, of course, is nowhere near the whole story.

Not for a game that had so many highs and lows.

The agony and the ecstasy

For the Oilers, it all started so well. They came out flying and dominated the Blackhawks, firing 25 shots in the first 24 minutes of the game.

Yet all they managed by that point was a 1-1 tie.

Then the bad parts of the Oilers' game began to overwhelm the good.

In the second period, they took two quick penalties, killed off the first and surrendered the go-ahead goal on the second.

During that second penalty kill, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins briefly got control of the puck in the Oilers zone and started up the boards. Seeing that, Draisaitl took off toward centre ice.

But Hawks defenceman Duncan Keith kept the puck in the zone. He chipped it past Nugent-Hopkins, and suddenly the Hawks had a three-on-one.

Alex DeBrincat scored to make it 2-1.

In the third period, the Oilers got called for too many men on the ice. Draisaitl was one of the guilty parties. Jordan Oesterle's goal made it 3-1.

For his sins, Draisaitl spent good portions of the third period on the bench. With his team down two goals, the Oilers' second leading scorer was on the ice for less than four minutes.

Late in the third period, with the Oilers pressing, coach Todd McLellan called Talbot to the bench and put six skaters on the ice.

He was rewarded when a seeing-eye wrist shot by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins found the net with 2:19 left in the period to make it 3-2.

After the faceoff, the Oilers regained control of the puck, and Talbot hightailed it to the bench again. Draisaitl jumped on the ice and rushed to the Hawks zone, arriving just in time to bang a rebound into the net to tie the game with 55 seconds left.

With that, Draisaitl went from the dog house to the penthouse, emotionally. His last-minute heroics seemed to erase his earlier miscues.

But overtime broke his heart.

'He made me look like a junior player'

The Oilers put their two superstars, Draisaitl and McDavid, on the ice for the three-on-three. Chicago countered with one of their own stars, Patrick Kane, and Nick Schmaltz.

The Hawks got control of the puck, and the shifty Kane deked Draisaitl badly, leaving him waving his stick at nothing but air. Kane did the same to Talbot and the Hawks won 4-3.

In the locker room later, with reporters converging, Draisaitl stood up and faced the music. He knew what was coming and he did not try to duck it.

First question: "What happened on the winning goal?"

Stunned and dejected, Draisaitl took four long seconds to answer.

"He made me look like a junior player," he said. "That's what happened."

He waited 13+ years for his chance

Another storyline was Blackhawks goalie Jeff Glass. Friday's game was his first NHL start. He is 32 years old.

Drafted by the Ottawa Senators way back in 2004, the Calgary native toiled for more than 13 seasons in the American Hockey League, the ECHL, and the Kontinental Hockey League, the whole time waiting his big chance.

When it finally came, he was stellar, stopping 42 of 45 shots and earning first star honours.

The recurring storyline continues to be the Oilers' atrocious penalty kill, which gave up two more goals on Friday. Clicking at 72.7 per cent, it is the worst in the league. Worse yet, at home, it's somewhere below 60 per cent for the season.

"It's the most baffling thing," McLellan said about the difference in the team's penalty kill at  home and on the road. "It seems like I explain something different every night when I talk about our penalty kill.

"Tonight, we cheated the first one," he said, in reference to Draisaitl leaving the defensive zone too early. "We were going for offence and we cheated."

Tonight, we cheated the first one.- Todd McLellan, Oilers head coach

He talked about the too-many-men penalty.

Finally, he talked about Draisait.

"The good was the goal, and the bad were a few mistakes," he said. "Patrick Kane can make a lot players look like that in a one-on-one situation. He's done that to many, many players in the NHL who are very skilled and talented like Leon is."

The Oilers now slip to 17-18-3 and play their final game of 2017 at home Sunday against the Winnipeg Jets.