I’ll lead off with the opinion that the sequence of Ekholm blowing Rantanen up followed up by that virtuoso goal on the next 5v5 shift was the best of any Oilers d man in a long, long time. Ekholm has been fantastic for us since he came here, but I feel like all of a sudden he has taken his game to another level not seen from him at any point in his career, even in Nashville. Tonight was an elite of the elite game from him.
I feel somewhat vindicated for my insistence that Kane - McLeod - Perry stay together as a solid identity line. I think Perry is probably the perfect guy to get Kane going in the right direction and once they get more traction I’m convinced that those two are going to play off each other and embrace being a problem for other teams in a range of ways. Insane that we went away from them at all, still mind blowing.
To a man we played a solid hockey game tonight - that is the kind of game I know we can deliver when we get out of our own way.