EDMONTON, Alberta -- Leon Draisaitl is Anaheim's Public Enemy No. 1. And he made sure that the Edmonton Oilers finally built a lead that the Anaheim Ducks couldn't overcome.

Draisaitl scored twice early in the game en route to a hat trick, and Oilers scored five times in the first period of a 7-1 rout of the Ducks in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals on Sunday.

Edmonton evened the series and forced a seventh and decisive Game 7 in Anaheim on Wednesday night. The winner will face the Nashville Predators in the Western Conference finals.

After blowing a 2-0 lead in Game 4 and 3-0 lead in the final 3:16 of regulation in Game 5, the Oilers needed a big start and a big finish. They got both.

Draisaitl continued to produce against Anaheim.

After scoring three goals and providing two assists, Draisaitl has 21 points against the Ducks in 11 regular-season and playoff games in 2016-17.

Edmonton's Mark Letestu also had two goals and two assists in Game 6.

"We're better than people give us credit for," Letestu said. "We had a tough game in San Jose where we lost 7-0, and we came back and won the next two games in that series. I don't think there is anything that we're going to come across that we can't bounce back from. We proved that to each other tonight."

By the 8:25 mark of the first period, Ducks starting goalie John Gibson was yanked after giving up three goals -- two from Draisaitl and one from Zack Kassian -- all through his legs.

"I wasn't very good," Gibson said. "I have to come up with a couple of saves and maybe it's different, maybe it's not. As it went on, they kind of took it to us, it wasn't our best. I wasn't as good as I wanted to be, and I kind of let them down."

Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said the goaltending was an issue for his team, but it was far from the team's only problem on the night.

"Let's face the facts: You can't have success, and nobody has success in the playoffs, without a complete team effort, and goaltending is a big part of that," he said. "It's a team game. I'm not going to sit here and say that our goaltending was where it needed to be, but our other side of our game wasn't where it needed to be, either."

Draisaitl gave the Oilers the lead at 2:45 of the first. He came in on a break and was hooked from behind by Ducks defenseman Hampus Lindholm. The hook forced Draisaitl to fan on his shot, but the resulting change-up fooled Gibson and slid under his stick.

Draisaitl struck again at 7:22, taking a pass from Milan Lucic, spinning, then sliding a backhand through Gibson.

Kassian made it 3-0 just 1:03 after Draisaitl's second goal.

Backup goalie Jonathan Bernier didn't fare much better, as Letestu beat him twice before the period ended. Letestu scored his first goal at 11:39 and the second goal on the power play at 18:49 to increase the margin to 5-0.

The Oilers didn't show mercy in the second period, with Anton Slepyshev scoring just 45 seconds in on a feed from Patrick Maroon.

Rickard Rakell scored for the Ducks at 8:56.

Draisaitl's third goal, a power-play marker at 4:33, spurred a shower of caps, toques and other hats from the stands.

The Oilers were without two defensemen.

Andrej Sekera, who took a hard hit from Ryan Getzlaf in Game 5, was ruled out for the series. Oscar Klefbom, who hadn't missed a game this year, gave it a try in warm-ups but couldn't go.

With Klefbom and Sekera gone, Eric Gryba, who hadn't played since Game 1 of the first round, and call-up Griffin Reinhart were dressed. Reinhart, playing his first game for the Oilers this season, got an assist.

"We thought this morning that we would have to inject two new bodies into the lineup," Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. "Grybs has been ready to go, he was chomping at the bit to get in. We knew he would give us a good game. Griffin was the wild card, but he came in and he played very admirably, he did a good job."

In a game in which the Oilers offense exploded, Connor McDavid -- the league's leading scorer in the regular season -- was held without a point.

So, the question: How do the Ducks stop Draisaitl in Game 7?

"For him, he's got a lot of freedom on the ice right now," Carlyle said. "We have to take time and space away. Simple as that. The best way to play against elite-level players is to put time and effort into playing in their zone."

NOTES: Ducks D Kevin Bieksa, who has been out since he was forced to leave during Game 2, missed Game 6 due to injury. RW Patrick Eaves missed his third straight game with a lower-body injury. RW Ondrej Kase missed his second consecutive game. ... The Oilers scratched D Mark Fayne, C Matt Hendricks, RW Iiro Pakarinen and LW Jujhar Khaira. ... The Ducks scratched D Clayton Stoner, D Simon Despres, RW Logan Shaw and RW Jared Boll. ... Ducks C Ryan Getzlaf and RW Jakob Silfverberg set a new team standard: this year marks the first time in Ducks playoff history that two players had at least seven goals through the first nine games of the postseason.