Only 24 hours after a wrestling match broke out at the Oilers game Thursday night in Dallas, the boys were right back to work to wrap up their road trip with a visit to St. Louis. And after getting demolished by the Stars, I was hopeful that the Oilers would respond with their best foot forward. Wasn’t too much to ask, really. And while we got our wish for most of the hockey game, and the Oilers were far and away the better team, eight minutes of pushback by St. Louis was enough to erase Edmonton’s lead and push the game to overtime. Final score: 3-2 Blues in OT

You can live with losses sometimes, but this one felt like a kick to the shin. The Oilers dominated most of Friday’s hockey game, and to leave that extra point on the table is pretty annoying. After Connor McDavid made it 2-0, I thought the boys had the night locked down and were about to wrap up the road trip with another two points in the bank. Instead, with eight minutes left in regulation, the wheels started to fall off. A couple of sloppy plays with the puck, soft play in the defensive zone, and suddenly a game that felt in control turned into a scramble. Before you know it, the Blues tied the game and wound up stealing the extra point in the dying seconds of overtime, leaving us all with that familiar “how did we let that happen?” feeling.

To be fair, Joel Hofer was fantastic and deserves his flowers because the guy made a pile of saves that kept St. Louis hanging around way longer than they should have. But at the same time… WTF is going on around here? When you’ve got a two-goal lead late in the third period, that’s when the good teams lock things down and get the job done. Simple hockey. Smart puck management. Puck support, make clean changes, and get on the plane with two points. Instead, the Oilers left the door open just enough for the Blues to walk right back in and drop a turd in the punchbowl. Yes, a 2-1-1 road trip is perfectly respectable, but when you’re trying to climb the Pacific Division standings and the teams around you keep winning, these are the kinds of points you cannot give away.

After Tristan Jarry got tagged for seven goals against the Stars, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of Oilers fans were excited to see that Connor Ingram was healthy and able to get back between the pipes. Not only has Ingram been steady in his last few starts, but it’s clear that he gives the Oilers their best chance to win right now. And with both teams in the second half of a back-to-back set, Ingram needed to be solid because these are the games when mistakes tend to come fast and from bad spots on the ice. That’s why you loved seeing that Ingram was ready to go and handled everything that came his way in the first 20 minutes. He wasn’t overly busy, but he was there when called upon. As the game wore on and the Oilers started to take over, the pressure on Ingram to keep the door shut grew with each scoreless shift and each passing minute on the clock.

With the shots growing increasingly lopsided in Edmonton’s favour but the goals not necessarily following suit, Ingram needed to be sharp to make sure the Blues couldn’t steal one. Even when Kasperi Kapanen eventually snapped the stalemate and Connor McDavid added some insurance, there was nothing comfortable about a two-goal lead. And after 32:22 of game action, the first crack arrived with Pius Suter’s shot from in close that beat Ingram on the short side. Just under four minutes later, it was Cam Fowler. All of a sudden, we were off to overtime and lost the game on a night when the Oilers dominated. Not that I hang that loss on Ingram — two goals for wasn’t enough based on the opportunities, and he made some massive saves in the third — but that doesn’t change that we had the second-best goalie on the ice. And for a team dying for points right now, having that happen more often than not is a tough pill to swallow.

Doesn’t it feel good to see an Oiler score a revenge goal instead of having them happen against us all the time? In case you forgot, Kapanen landed in Edmonton after the Blues put him on waivers, and even that was a couple of years ago now, it still had to feel good to score against the team that bailed on you. Not only was Kapanen’s 7th goal of the season a nice jab at his former team, but it was also temporarily a huge one for his current team. Edmonton was running the show for most of the second period, but some fantastic goaltending from Joel Hofer was really ruining the party. Kapanen’s goal wasn’t just important, it was critical at that point.

Even though the Oilers went on to lose the game, I wanted to give Kasperi Kapanen props for not only popping the goal but also being one of the few secondary scorers who have found ways to chip in consistently. Last night’s marker was his 15th point, despite it being only his 26th game of the season after missing months with a lower-body injury. Even so, that point total still puts him ahead of guys who have played a lot more often than him, like Trent Frederic and Adam Henrique. Seeing as secondary-scoring issues are as old around these parts as this very website, it’s nice to see a guy get the job done as often as Kapanen has for just over a million bucks. We’re talking value here, friends.

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