THE BRIGHT SIDE

• Pat Maroon opened the scoring with an early first-period goal after he was able to put home a perfect cross-crease pass from Connor McDavid. He added an empty net goal for his 13th of the year to seal the deal for his team. Maroon finds himself on a three-game goal scoring streak after Todd McLellan reunited him with the captain in Nashville and he’s doing all the things that made us fall in love with him. With the trade deadline coming, he’s either upping his trade value or giving up more reason to miss him when he’s gone, depending on how you look at it. Great night for Patty.
• Jujhar Khaira beat Markstrom upstairs with a beautiful backhand goal after Puljujarvi threaded a needle with the pass. From start to finish, this goal was pretty and the finish by Khaira was Rob Thomas smooth.
• Jesse Puljujarvi had himself a hell of a game tonight, and I was pumped to see him get rewarded with a goal. The big man was all over the puck tonight and he was making plays basically any time he was on the ice, and he rode that hot streak to a three point night. Maybe there’s something to hitting the ODR on your vacation?
• Leon Draisaitl smashed the fourth goal of the night on a beautiful two-on-one with Jesse Puljujarvi and Markstrom had absolutely no chance. Draisaitl’s line was rolling all night and it almost seemed like a matter of time before Leon was going to get in on the action.
• I love watching Connor McDavid do the things that only he can do, and he had a lot more room to get those things done tonight against the Canucks. The captain was flying tonight and there was no better example than the assist he got on Pat Maroon’s first period marker. He beat his man with speed and found the Big Rig with a perfect, tape-to-tape pass.
• Cam Talbot has had an up and down year and we haven’t seen him play at the levels he was at last season all that often. That said, he was great tonight. He was square to the shooter, kept his rebounds under control, and he made all the saves that you would expect your starter to make. Talbot was great for the Oilers tonight, stopping 25 of 27 shots for a .926 save%.
• Adam Larsson played a team high 24:00 minutes and added an assist for what amounted to a fine night for the big Swede. Larsson was solid in his own end, he threw his body around, and made smart plays with the puck whenever it was on his stick.
• Darnell Nurse keeps getting better and I’m excited to see where his ceiling is. Darryl played 23:46, had three shots on goal, was +4, and did a nice job of picking his spots to jump up into the play.
• I really liked the Lucic-Draisaitl-Puljujarvi line tonight. That’s a lot of human being on one line and they were too much for the Canucks to handle.

THE FACE PALMERS

• Zack Kassian got a shorthanded breakaway early in the second period but wasn’t able to beat Markstrom on the glove side. At the other end of the ice, Daniel Sedin scored a deflection goal from the slot to get the Canucks on the board and narrow the Oilers lead to only one goal. The black cloud continues to hang over the penalty kill at Rogers Place.
• Brandon Sutter tied the game at two apiece after he was able to cash in on a perfectly executed two-on-one with Sven Baertschi.
• Why oh why can’t the Oilers kill off a penalty at home? Coming into tonight’s game, they were a historically bad 55.4% at home despite doing well on the road with an 86.6% kill rate. How does that happen? In tonight’s game, the trend continued as the Oilers only managed to kill off 2/3 of the chances they faced. At least tonight’s 66% success rate brings their average up?
• Not to be outdone, the Oilers went 0/3 on the power play as they apparently have no interest in scoring with the man advantage.
• The bye week rust was evident at times and the NHL agreed as they listed the giveaways as 12 apiece. Sometimes you can play with fire and not get burned.
• The Oilers were horrible in the faceoff circle tonight, winning only 35% of the draws they took. Missing Nuge already.

SCORING SUMMARY

PAUL COFFEY IS COMING ABOARD

#GOODCONTENT