PHILADELPHIA _ A sedate first-period that had little action turned into the wildest game of the season at the electric Wells Fargo Center on Thursday night.
Final: Flyers 6, Oilers 5.
Streak: 7.
Left winger Michael Raffl scored after making a power move to get past Oscar Klefbom, giving the Flyers a 6-5 lead with 1 minute, 29 seconds to go.
The Flyers, who overcame a 5-3 deficit in the final period, have won seven in a row for the first time since 2011. They will try to make it eight straight for the first time since 2002 when they host Dallas on Saturday afternoon.
Claude Giroux tied it at 5 with 7:49 left, scoring his second goal of the night by swatting a slot shot past backup goalie Jonas Gustavsson. Giroux had taken a feed from defenseman Radko Gudas, who had gone behind Edmonton's net.
About a minute earlier, Ivan Provov was tackled from behind by Connor McDavid as he sped deep into the Edmonton zone. There was no call, igniting chants from the irate crowd.
Earlier in the third, Benoit Pouliot (slot shot) and defenseman Oscar Klefbom (power-play point drive through a screen) scored about two minutes apart to put the Oilers ahead, 5-3. But Jake Voracek countered with a power-play goal of his own, cutting the deficit to 5-4 with 13:29 remaining.
It was that kind of night at the Wells Fargo Center. Defense was only a rumor.
Shortly after McDavid scored on the power play and began jawing with defenseman Brandon Manning, the Flyers erupted for three goals in a frenetic 72-second span to take a 3-2 second-period lead.
But Edmonton knotted the score on defenseman Andrej Sekera's short-handed goal, set up by the irrepressible McDavid, with 3:45 left in the second.
Mark Streit cut the deficit to 2-1 by converting a slick saucer pass from Travis Konency and scored on a one-timer from the point with 7:20 to go in the second. Fifty-three seconds later, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored his first goal in 30 games, taking a pass from Andrew MacDonald and lifting a shot into the left corner for the equalizer.
It took Giroux 19 seconds to give the Flyers their first lead of the night, one-timing a left-circle blast past Gustavsson.
With the Flyers on a power play, McDavid (power-play goal, assist) knocked the puck free from Bellemare and MacDonald near the right boards in the Edmonton offensive zone. Mark Letestu picked up the puck and found Sekera, whose left-circle shot beat Steve Mason and tied the game at 3 with 3:45 remaining in a wild second period.
It was the seventh short-handed goal allowed by the Flyers this season, the most in the NHL.
Earlier, Gudas, who missed the previous three games because of the flu, was caught up ice, and the Oilers capitalized on a two on one to take a 1-0 lead 4:39 into the game.
Speedy Leon Draisaitl (three points), who had been on McDavid's top line but was dropped to the third unit, used Pouliot as a decoy as he scored from the left circle, marking the fourth time in the last five games the Flyers had allowed the opening goal.
The Flyers used Mason's 42-save performance to steal a 3-2 overtime win over Florida on Tuesday. On Thursday, it was the Flyers' offense that bailed out Mason, who had his first off-night in a few weeks.
