The three-game sweep starts in Edmonton where Oilers head coach Todd Nelson has instilled a sense of confidence in a club that was in desperate need. The results are beginning to come along and Friday night the Oilers clubbed the Chicago Blackhawks, 5-2.
“We’re starting to gel a lot as a team,” Oilers left wing Taylor Hall said. “When we get 
down, we come together, we don’t try to do too much individually, we’re starting to play like that and it’s helping out a lot. It’s a nice little stretch for us. A win is a win, no matter where it is in the season. And when you’re winning against a team like Chicago it’s even better.”
Ben Scrivens made 19 saves for the win and Antti Raanta made 17 saves for Chicago and took the loss.
“They played a good game, but we had all the chances we needed to win this game tonight,” Raanta said. “I’ve played better games myself. You have to make the saves when the team needs you. You have to stay big and make the big saves and win the game, but today wasn’t that day. It was a bad loss for us.”
The Oilers offense was led by Derek Roy with a goal and two assists and Benoit Pouliot, Jeff Petry, Nail Yakupov and Hall chipped in goals.
“It’s fun to win,” Hall said. “It does make you forget about what place you are in the standings for a couple of days. We need that. We need to be a relaxed group. For us, winning helps out a lot with that.”
In Newark, the visiting New York Islanders needed extra time to dispatch the Devils, 3-2.
John Tavares had two goals and three points on the night including the game-winner after stripping the puck off Adam Larsson stick in OT.
“I just had a good beat on [Larsson] and disrupted him enough and was able to strip him and make a quick turn to the net,” Tavares said. “I saw Calvin de Haan coming down the pipe and my original thought was to go to him, but their forward stayed there and didn’t come to me. I saw Kinkaid challenge me and I hit the far corner.”
Larsson was making excuses after the game.
“He just got the stick on me there and he got the puck and he got body position too, so it was hard for me to recover,” said Larsson, who logged 24:47 of ice time. “[Maybe I lost my balance] a little bit, but it’s just a bad play by me. It’s my fault.”
Keith Kinkaid was the victim of the Tavares goal in the Devils net.
“I thought we’d been playing pretty well and their second goal was a little miscommunication on our part and a little bit of a gift for them,” Tavares said. “We had to bounce back and stick with it, keep going at them. I thought we generated more opportunities than they did down the stretch.”
In Toronto, the Maple Leafs’ interim head coach Peter Horachek picked up his first win behind the bench as the Leafs downed the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-2.
“I thought there was a clear focus [Thursday] and a clear focus this morning,” Horachek said. “I felt it. I was worried about them being nervous again, because I thought the first game they all seemed a little tight and nervous.”
The win ended a three-game skid and a stretch that saw the Leafs lose eight of 10.
“That’s the kind of game that we’re striving towards on an every-night basis,” Maple Leafs defenseman Cody Franson said. “Our forwards did a great job of playing in our [defensive] zone; they played a slow and in-the-house game. There were options for us in the middle all night. They helped us break out of our zone, and they did a great job on the transition and generating some offensive chances.
“When we can play like that as a group, we spend less time in on our own zone and we’re a much better team because of it.”
Ryan Johansen put the Blue Jackets on the board in the opening period but the Leafs rattled off four straight after that.
“It was nice to get an early goal there but we had to keep pressure on them and try to work for that next goal, and we kind of sat back a little bit,” Johansen said. “We used our sticks to check instead of our feet and that turned into a couple of penalties and then we let their power play go to work. Credit to them, they did a good job there of responding and getting them on the board. We had to keep pushing there.”
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