THE BRIGHT SIDE

• Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got the Oilers on the board and back to within one after he put his hard hat on and got to work in the St. Louis slot. RNH parked himself in front of the net and took a couple of hacks at Nurse’s centring pass before finally getting it past Jake Allen for his seventh goal of the year. To me, Nuge was the best Oiler and it wasn’t really close.
• Oscar Klefbom has decided that he only wants to score big goals this year. Last week, he had back-to-back game winners and tonight, he smashed the tying goal past Allen when the Oilers had the empty net. That doesn’t normally work for our boys, so seeing them tie it up late was a welcomed surprise.
• I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited to see Connor McDavid in my life. Frankly, with him out of the lineup on Monday, the Oilers lacked the sense of spontaneity and flash so I was thrilled to see the McFlow back out there. McDavid finished his night with another assist on the pile and a shootout goal. Here’s to infinite health for you, sir!
• Cam Talbot was making his first start in a while and he needed to be a good one. Not only was he still looking for his 100th win with the Oilers, but he’s also looking to get himself back in the rotation to play in net. Mikko Koskinen has straight up stolen Dadbot’s job and I was looking forward to seeing how he’d respond with tonight’s start. Talbot responded with a fantastic effort that not only kept his team in the mix when they needed him but kept things locked down at two goals. Dadbot finished the night with his 100th win with the Oilers, 28 saves, and a .933 save%.
• I liked the way Nuge’s line looked and I thought they were the best trio by far. I also liked bumping Jujhar Khaira up there and giving him a chance in the top six.
• I take a shot at Nurse and Russell’s first period in the ‘Face Palmers’ but I’ll also give them credit for calming things down in the following 40 minutes. I liked Nurse’s rush into the zone and assist on Nuge’s goal.
• I can’t believe I forgot to mention the disallowed goal call. The Oilers got lucky on that one and obviously they needed it. Praise be to the ref? Still feels weird.
• Pat Maroon and David Perron didn’t score! Small victories, friends.
• Huge booze not beets wincast is coming up in a few minutes! As always, you can follow along and join in the chat over on my Twitter.

THE FACE PALMERS

• That first period was as bad as I’ve seen the Oilers play in a while. Brutal start that probably cost them the game.
• Ivan Barbashev opened the scoring for the Blues after he found himself WIDE OPEN in the slot after both Oilers defenders (Nurse and Russell) decided that covering that area was not all that important. Barbashev couldn’t have had any more space on the play and it wasn’t overly surprising that he was able to score. Brutal coverage.
• Brayden Schenn put the Blues up by two goals after he corralled a hard rebound off the backboards and put it into the empty net behind Talbot.
• The first period of this hockey game was a disaster for the Nurse/Russell pairing. They were on for both of the Blues’ first-period goals and they completely spaced on their coverage both times. Fortunately, the duo got better as the game went on, but the start was almost detrimental.
• The powerplay was horrible tonight. I know the Blues were running a pretty aggressive PK, but the Oilers couldn’t get anything done tonight when they needed it the most. Disappointing 0/5 night with the man advantage, including the 4-on-3 opportunity to end things in overtime. This game could have been over long before OT if the PP had gotten anything done.
• Only 40% in the faceoff circle tonight which is not near good enough. Yeah, yeah I complain about this a lot and I know fancy stats guys don’t care about faceoffs all that much, but I’m of the opinion that it’s a good thing to start with the puck as often as you can.

SCORING SUMMARY

#GOODCONTENT

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