PREVIEW: Oilers at Devils

The Edmonton Oilers will begin a back-to-back set on Thursday night at Prudential Center against the New Jersey Devils.

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NEWARK, NJ – There’s no ‘Devil’ in this dressing room when things aren’t going to plan.

But mistakes have to be managed.

As the Edmonton Oilers get set to begin back-to-back games on Thursday at Prudential Center versus the New Jersey Devils, Head Coach Kris Knoblauch is praising his players for their ability to stay process-oriented despite results not being what they’d hoped for since returning from the 4 Nations Face-Off.

“With us not playing nearly as well as we are typically playing, I’ve got to commend the guys on the frustration level,” he said. “A lot of times, guys are angry and blaming the other players, but I think we've done a good job of keeping those emotions in check.”

The Oilers are 3-6-0 in nine games since resuming their regular-season schedule, including a 3-2 defeat to the Buffalo Sabres on Monday night to open the team’s four-game road trip through the states of New York and New Jersey.

After fighting back twice to tie the game through goals from a pair of defencemen in Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard, the Oilers committed another turnover in the third period that produced a full-ice rush for forward Tage Thompson and Josh Norris, who beat out Bouchard to the puck in Edmonton's end before it was buried by Thompson for his second of the night and the game-winning goal.

Edmonton has lost seven of their last 10 games overall by a 42-29 margin and five of their last six road games, having dropped five points back of the Vegas Golden Knights for first place in the Pacific Division while sitting one point up on the Los Angeles Kings. Their last three games have been decided by a goal, showing how slim the margins are and how the result came come down to the smallest error.

Though they’re well-equipped to handle adversity as the League’s most-veteran team, experiencing situations during the regular season and playoffs over the last few seasons that’ve pushed them to respond, there are times when that can play against them.

Coach Knoblauch wants to see some of the comeback scenarios be replaced with more readiness from puck drop – starting with a date on Thursday with the Devils, who are holding down third place in the Metropolitan Division and already defeated the Oilers 3-0 back at Rogers Place on Nov. 4 in their previous meeting.

“I think one of our strengths is also a weakness for us,” he said. “One is that I think that we can handle adversity extremely well. No matter what happens, we just go with it. You saw that last year in the playoffs many times down 3-0 to Florida, the Dallas series numerous times, and Vancouver in two elimination games. I think we handle that really well. But on the flip side, when you're really good at handling adversity and you're calm, that means you're missing that switch to turn it on and say ’alright, we need to push a little bit harder,’ so it's a fine line.

"Right now, I think we can push a little bit harder and be more ready for these games and playing a full 60 minutes."

Minimizing mistakes like the ones that costed them on Monday night in Buffalo is at the top of the Oilers’ to-do list after outshooting the Sabres 34-23 but being victimized by some of their own errors – most notably turnovers leading to chances off the rush like Thompson's deciding goal.

While they’ll never eliminate every mistake in a game, the Oilers understand there’s a proper approach they can take to eliminate the preventable ones and will be trying to put that into practice on Thursday against the Devils.

“I think you're never going to play a perfect game. There's always going to be mistakes out there," said Jeff Skinner. “ You obviously want to try and limit them as much you can; when you are making mistakes, try and recover as fast as possible. We've got a lot of veterans in here and guys that have played a long time and know when to make plays and when the right time is to try something, because you still have to try and make plays and create stuff.

“Just mostly the guys on the bench being engaged, talking to each other and executing on the ice,” Knoblauch added.” But you can really tell it starts with the the body language, guys communicating on the bench, and then it carries over to playing on the ice.”

• PROJECTED LINEUP: Oilers at Devils

Darnell Nurse will skate in his 700th career game on Thursday in the building he was drafted seventh overall by the Oilers in 2013 while becoming just the second defenceman, and 12th player overall, to play in 700 games for the franchise. Nurse's fifth goal of the season against Buffalo put him into a tie with Charlie Huddy on 81 career goals for the second most with the club.

Leon Draisaitl is riding a 15-game point streak of 11 goals and 11 assists and is four goals and three points shy of his fourth career 50-goal and 100-point season, while Connor McDavid has two goals and nine assists over his eight-game run. Evan Bouchard has six points (3G, 3A) during his five-game point streak after scoring his 12th goal of the season against the Sabres.

The Devils were victorious 5-3 over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday evening to keep a gap of six points between them and Columbus in the race for the third spot in the Metropolitan Division, though the Blue Jackets have two games in hand. New Jersey started the season 24-11-3, but they've gone 11-14-3 since then for the fourth worst record in the NHL since Dec. 27.

New Jersey has missed offensive leader Jack Hughes for the last four games and won't have him for the remainder of the regular season after he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in their 2-0 loss to Vegas back on Mar. 2.