NHL scores 2016: Oilers gain more confidence with a rallying win in St. Louis

Here’s a good test.

Hit the road. It’s not an easy road trip. Two of the three games are against the two Western Conference Final opponents from last season. In the first game, against the St. Louis Blues, give up the lead in the first period to one of the league’s top goal scorers (Vladimir Tarasenko).

Battle back in the third. Get a dirty goal from a deflection in front of the net. Hang on and win in overtime.

Is it any wonder the Edmonton Oilers feel pretty good about where they’re at right now?

They can. Probably. At least, they’re capable of cleaning up mistakes early on in games against elite teams. That hasn’t been the case in a long time. Nobody would ever accuse the Oilers of being an overly-physical team, but to beat the Blues you have to play their game a bit. Ask any team forced to play them in the playoffs and they’ll know that feeling well.

And the Oilers played it. They adjusted, forced play to the front of the net and got rewarded. Adaptations and confidence. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think Edmonton can hang around in the playoff race a bit longer than even their staunchest supporters would’ve thought three months ago.

Predators 2, Flyers 1 (SO)

Entropy 1, Hurricanes’ Ice 0

Ducks 3, Maple Leafs 2

Oilers 3, Blues 2

Flames 4, Coyotes 2

But it melts quickly. Who knew!

The Hurricanes had a bit of an issue on Monday. The ice coolant distributor fluctuator thing that makes the ice cold and stuff broke. Not just before the game, either. Players on both teams had complained about the conditions as early as morning skate. But it wasn’t fixed in time for the ice to cool itself.

And the Red Wings have a game tomorrow night. So the game was postponed.

The Blues and Oilers were still tied, 2-2, when Carter Hutton made his first real mistake of the game: he played the puck behind his own net and made a blind pass straight to Milan Lucic.

It’s a good thing the Oilers won in overtime, because that would’ve bothered Lucic for days.

Firmly. And spectacularly.

Pat Maroon scored in front of his son, Anthony, in their hometown of St. Louis. What followed was one of the best moments of the NHL season. Heck, of 2016. We all know 2016 was a rough year. We’ll take this.

The Coyotes got a 5-on-3 power play late in their game against the Calgary Flames. They were down 3-2 at the time.

We have no images or videos to post here because nothing happened on that 5-on-3 power play where the Coyotes had two more players on the ice than the team they were opposing, who was up by one goal and ended up winning the game. They won the game because the Coyotes did not do anything in the 90-plus seconds they were on the ice with more players than the other team. The winning team. Two more players than the winning team, in fact.

It’s either the fact that Connor McDavid has yet to go two games without at least a point in his career yet. Or it’s this.