You notice how the Oilers have most parts of their team working just fine and yet the parts that don’t work drag the whole team down? It’s kind of like a car. Let’s be specific and say that it’s like a 2004 Ford Taurus with a battery that isn’t charging. It could lead to the whole thing stalling on the side of the road, but you wouldn’t want to just start randomly replacing every part when some are fine. You’d have to find what’s the problem, and what’s the cause of the problem.

Me, I like to find these things out the easy way. I was told that the fastest way would be to disconnect the battery and see if the car would die running on just the alternator. If it did, the battery was the problem, if it didn’t it’s the alternator’s fault. It sounded like a good idea, but disconnecting a battery would make my symptoms flare up. I’m severely allergic to manual labor. Understanding the point of such a test, I had a better idea. I’d just turn the car on, run it for a few hours and see if it died. If it did, I’d need an alternator, if it didn’t, I’d turn on all the battery wasting instruments, drain my battery and see f it could be charged again. It was the much more comfortable option. Brilliant if I do say so myself. Really, It’s no different than when Todd Mclellan sees that his point shots don’t work, and instead of trying something new, just tries to see if the team will completely fall apart while doing this.

Tonight we will get a taste of if the Oilers had solved a problem or not. They have Andrej Sekera back, this is a good time to determine if the point shots were causing the problem, or if it was the players taking them.

1st Period:

Leon Draisaitl, Jujhar Khaira, and Ryan Strome are out there to start.

Right around a minute in, Brandon Davidson decides that Vladimir Tarasenko should have the puck in the Oilers end. Tarasenko gets it from him behind the net, comes out to the side and and feeds Brayden Schenn for a high quality chance in front. Cam Talbot makes the save but it doesn’t look promising for the Oilers doing things like that.

The Draisaitl line looks to be taking matters into their own hands on their second shift of the evening. They were a little impatient of Todd’s point shot diagnostics and have decided that it would be more productive to cycle from behind the net, to the high slot, and then to just outside the side of the crease for a few good shots. No goals, but it looked like they might be on to something.

Darnell Nurse gets a good shot here. Connor McDavid gave him the pass, he walks around the player defending him and puts a backhand on Jake Allen.

I love this Safeway score and win contest. IF you shop at Safeway or Sobeys on game day, IF they draw your name, IF one player scores 5 goals in one game, and IF that player plays for the Oilers, you will have the opportunity to answer a skill testing question to win $1,000,000. I’m really not sure the probability is any better than the LottoMax with that many qualifiers. Good luck, anyway.

The Oilers can’t sustain any pressure here. They’re getting a shot or two off the rush, but this game has largely been going the other way.

The pride of Ft. McMurray gave Darnell Nurse a high stick and gets a four-minute double minor. This is exactly the kind of opportunity we need to get some chances and maybe even a goal... or two.

Apparently, it’s one of those powerplays. Nuge hits the post but it still looks pretty bad. The puck gets cleared a lot and then Milan Lucic tries to force a pass across the neutral zone. It’s picked off, Patrik Berglund goes in on a shorthanded breakaway and... is stopped by Talbot. Thank God.

Still, we also didn’t score on a four minute powerplay. That is starting to get old. The Period ends 0-0 with the Blues leading 11-5 on the shot clock.

2nd Period:

We get a much better start to this period than the last. Connor McDavid tryign to get through the whole team and get to the net. He does it relatively successfully but can’t get alone in front the way he wants to.

There is a ton of very boring play this period. Dump and chase happening by both teams and not many real chances. So, I’m going to spare you some of the details.

Darnell Nurse gets a pretty good chance, though. Mark Letestu throws the puck on net, Nurse gets the rebound but instead of putting it in the semi-open net, he hits iron.

Matt Benning takes a hooking penalty with 3:49 left in the period. We know how our penalty kill preforms, we know that a goal against here would be a back breaker, we know the Blues will make this an even more boring game with a lead, we know where this is going...

Actually, we killed off the penalty and looked pretty good doing it.

No game deserves a shootout, but if there was, It’s this. 0-0 after 2.

3rd Period:

Apparently we get 4-on-4 to start the period. I missed what all that was about but this should get things a little more entertaining.

They’re getting some shots, we’re getting more shots and if I hadn’t been hearing Drews exact same awful commentary, I’d swear I was watching a different game.

Zack Kassian has his stick chopped in half and we are off to the Powerplay.

No goals on this one either, but we had one hell of a lot more zone time than we did on the four minute one earlier this game.

This game is actually pretty entertaining now. Still no Goals, chances everywhere though.

CAM TALBOT!!!

That’s an amazing save. He’s back.

Unfortunately, Tage Thompson scores first. His first ever NHL goal, in fact. It’s annoying that the ref caused this chance against leading to a goal, but still... A guy named Tage needs a hand out on occasion. The First goal of the game happened 50 minutes into the game. Which is just under the amount of time that it takes to go four blocks in public transit.

OILERS ANSWER BACK!!!

The Oilers twitter hasn’t yet put up the gif of the goal so I’ll do my best to explain what happened. The Oilers cycled the puck behind the net, got it out front to a mad scramble, Mike Cammelleri got it out at the half-wall and took a hope-shot at the pile. It got through and the game is tied. Also, it appears that Todd McLellan — like me — has figured out that the alternator was the problem.

A few minutes later, we start losing again. Berglund takes a one-timer and hits blows the puck past Talbot. 2-1 Blues.

It’s 0K though. Nurse Passes to McDavid, who passes to Leon creating a 2-on-2, Leon back to McDavid and to the back of the net. This is like last year and I take back everything I said about this game deserving a shootout. It’s fantastic hockey, this period.

With just under a minute to go Ryan Nugent-Hopkins makes an incredible pass to Drake Cagguila out in front. He takes a flutter shot and that’s you game-winner.

Notes:

• Jesse Puljujarvi did not have a good game. I counted 4 unforced turnovers and 7 risky passes with no upside. He’s 19, this stuff is going to happen so there’s no reason to panic. Just get him in the video room and let him work through it.
• We hit 5 posts tonight.
• I have a friend who enjoys doing work so I was able to have my alternator changed while I assumed my natural position on the couch.
• Andrej Sekera looked fine. Nothing noteworthy good or bad. I’m fine with that after so much time off.
• That second period was a disgrace to hockey.
• That third period in what you show someone to get into hockey.
• 5 goals in the last 10 minutes
• We’ve now won 3 straight for the first time all year, they’ve all been in regulation and we almost have as many wins as regulation losses.
• This recap has twice as many words as my last one.