The play of Sam Gagner continues to be a bright light, in what has become a very inconsistent period for the Edmonton Oilers. Gagner was creating chances every time he hit the ice and was finally rewarded with his first goal of the season. Sam has been waiting for an opportunity to show what he can do all season long and he is definitely making the most of it. If he continues to play at this level, the coaching staff will have to make a decision on where to play him, when Taylor Hall returns.

The Oilers continued the trend of getting out of the gate quickly, this time scoring twice in the first three minutes. This team has struggled with starts to games for so long, that I can't even remember the last time this wasn't the case. Now if they could only closeout games, like they were earlier in the season.

While the Flames did a wonderful job in taking the Oilers top line out of the game, they still managed to put Edmonton ahead when Nugent-Hopkins scored in the third period. It is not realistic to expect your top line to be on fire every game. That being said, only a select few lines have the ability to get that big goal despite having a less then successful night and Edmonton's top line appears to be one of them.

As good as Edmonton's PP has been on home ice, is was just a matter of time before it hit a wall. The absence of Taylor Hall on the top unit is very apparent and their second unit continues to be down right awful. Calgary did a great job of pressuring RNH into moving the puck but that's when the rest of the unit has to make them pay for over committing, which the Oilers were unable to do. The team has had little practice time of late, due to their compact schedule, but that is going to change over the next two weeks. They must take this opportunity to focus on the power play and put together two units that will contribute. Hopefully, neither of those two units will feature Eric Belanger at the point. It seems everyone outside of this coaching staff sees this is not a good fit.

Jeff Petry had arguably, the worst game of his young career. Petry was a turnover machine all game long and was continually out of position. Add to that, him blowing a tire on the Flames third goal and it seemed to be just one of those nights for the blueliner. Petry has been very good of late lets chalk this one up, to having a bad night.

Calgary typically runs the Oilers show when the two teams meet and last night was no exception. Edmonton had no answer to the Flames physical play and were running around because of it. As I mentioned in my game day preview, Iginla is always a handful for Edmonton to deal with and that trend continued. Add to that, Rene Bourque playing like a motivated Rene Bourque, and the duo were way too much for the home side to handle.

As much as this city loves Ryan Smyth, his knack for taking stupid penalties at the worst possible time, is starting to become tiresome. Smyth has been great in his return to Edmonton, both on and off the ice, but the selfish penalties need to stop. While he has yet to hit the level of former captain Ethan Moreau, when it comes to taking ill timed minors, he is headed that way if he doesn't correct the problem.

Much like the power play, the Oilers penalty kill is starting to show holes. Their coverage has been far too loose of late and they are giving up a ton of scoring chances on the kill. Again, it may be because of fatigue and lack of practice time but they need to have it figured out before the Canes come to town on Wednesday night. One thing I found curious, was on the Flames third goal, they had O'Marra coming out after Belanger on the kill...my question is why? Late in the game is when you would expect to see Belanger and Horcoff on the kill and not the fourth line centre. If they can't have their top two guys out on the kill because they are tired, then maybe it's time to re-examine how they are distributing their ice time.It's not even up for debate. They need those guys ready to go in those situations