THE BRIGHT SIDE

• Drake Caggiula got his first goal of the year on the power play. Soak that in for a minute. Not only did Caggiula finally get himself on the board, he did it with the man advantage both of which are in desperate need of production.
• Ryan Strome must have been reading the comments section because he scored a goal (his 2nd) and had some jump in his step tonight. Strome has been taking heat lately and I wonder if tonight’s (right place, right time) goal will call off the dogs for a bit.
• Oscar Klefbom hasn’t really seemed like himself yet this year and I hope that scoring his first of the year will help him get there. Klefbom got the Oilers’ third goal of the night off of a knuckle puck that he smashed past Schneider in the first half of the second period.
• Milan Lucic got in a big second-period scrap with Dalton Prout right after Klefbom’s goa and I think the big man was trying to get himself fired up. Who knows if it worked or not but Lucic got a little bit of luck as he had the puck bounce in off his shin pad for his second goal of the year. If you want to watch the fight again, you can check it out on Lucic’s fight page over at HockeyFights.
• Leon Draisaitl finished off a beautiful passing play by the first line that ended up with Connor setting Leon up on a tee. Draisaitl made no mistake of finishing of the pretty passing play.
• Nuge has new life this year and it’s pretty cool to watch him at his best. He seems so much more confident when the puck is on his stick and he’s making the kind of plays that we used to see from him a lot in his rookie season. Nuge extended his point streak to four games with another two points as he added an empty net goal (team leading 6th) and an assist on Lucic’s second period goal.
• Connor McDavid finds himself on a five-game point streak as he started his night with an assist on Caggiula’s power play marker, added another on Klefbom’s second period blast, and a third on Draisaitl’s third-period marker. Pretty casual three point night for the captain.
• Cam Talbot was rock solid tonight, especially in the second period as the Devils got a handful of really good chances in tight. When Dadbot is on his game he’s really tough to beat and the Oilers needed that from him tonight. Talbot finished the night with 30 saves and a .909 save%.
• Props to the Nurse-Larsson pairing. They were both physical when given the chance and warlords along the boards. Nice effort by the newly formed top pair.
• Pat Maroon got an assist and that kept his point streak alive at seven games. He’s been hot lately.
• It can’t be understated overstated how great it was to have six different guys scoring the goals tonight. The Oilers need secondary scoring to be successful and they got some of that in tonight’s game. Let’s hope the trend can continue.
• The Oilers were dominant in the faceoff circle and ended up finishing at 67% on the night. Very nice.

THE FACE PALMERS

• I know I’m going to hear at least 10x that I need to get over it, but how good would the Oilers look with Taylor Hall in the lineup? Dude is on a tear and the fact that it’s happening in Jersey while the Oilers are having trouble scoring is just annoying to me. Hall got the Devils on the board late in the first period to cut the Oilers’ lead down to one goal. What was Klefbom doing on this one?
• The Devils got a seeing eye goal from Jesper Bratt on a shot that saw its way through traffic and past Talbot. This goal tied the game up at two after the Oilers had opened up a 2-0 lead, and it was one of those moments where the game could have gone either way.
• I still don’t think that Gibbons’ goal should have counted. Looked like a high stick to me and you won’t be able to convince me otherwise.
• You can’t tell me that the Devils only cheated enough to get one penalty tonight. I find it amazing how inconsistent the refs are from game to game, and I mean that for both sides. Frankly, how was there only one penalty called in an NHL hockey game? Whatever.
• Send Yamamoto back to Spokane please. Let him play big minutes in the WHL. It’s be good — I promise.
• Gregor was almost perfect with his game predictions for tonight and I know that I’ll never hear the end of it.

SCORING SUMMARY

#GOODCONTENT