Beard cheered: Maroon's antics steal show in Edmonton Oilers rare home-ice win

Give Patrick Maroon credit for the first ZZ-Top hat trick in NHL history.

That's a goal, an assist and three beard tugs.

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All on a night when the Edmonton Oilers beat the San Jose Sharks 5-3 to win only their sixth game on home ice all season.

Hockey fans know the traditional Gordie Howe hat trick is a goal, an assist and a fight, all in the same game. Maroon got his assist in the second period and his goal in the third.

He added the last part after a wild goal-mouth scrabble near the opponents' net, when he and Sharks defenceman Brent Burns both ended up on their knees. Maroon had one arm draped over the big guy's back. Before they disengaged and got back on their skates, Maroon reached up with his glove and playfully tugged, three times, on one of the most famous beards not sported by a guitarist or bass player from the Texas rock band mentioned above.

The gap-toothed Burns just grinned and skated back to his bench.

'I thought he was going to be mad'

You don't often hear laughter at an NHL game. So it's pretty cool to be reminded that even hard-nosed professional athletes can be a little playful sometimes. The two players earned a big cheer from the fans.

"It was one of those things where it was just in my face, so I decided to pull his beard," Maroon said later. "I thought he was going to be mad at first. But he certainly said, 'Hey, do you like the beard?' And I said, 'Yeah, it's a pretty nice beard.'"

Burns, naturally, was asked for his take.

"It wasn't really a tug," he said. "He was just kind of petting it."

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Before all that frivolity, the game got off to the kind of start Oilers fans have seen too many times at Rogers Place this season.

The Sharks easily killed off an early penalty. Less than a minute later, Oilers winger Nathan Walker had a little Aussie-rules moment in the offensive zone when he tackled a defender. He got two minutes, because holding is a penalty in hockey.

The Sharks made the home team pay. When Oilers goalie Cam Talbot spit out a juicy rebound, Joe Palelski fired it home to put the Sharks up 1-0 before some stragglers in the crowd had even found their seats.

Two weeks ago, the Oilers might have been done right there. Lately, though, the team has shown character and drive that was too often missing not all that many games ago.

On Monday, the Oilers stuck to their game plan and were rewarded.

Maroon helped on Oilers first goal, too

Though his name will not appear on the score sheet, Maroon played a role in his team's first goal as well. When Sharks forward Thomas Hertl fired the puck over the boards in his own zone, the referees did not call a delay-of-game penalty.

Maroon was on the ice and close by, and though his opinion wasn't asked for, after the whistle he voiced it anyway, rather vociferously. The officials huddled, talked things over, and sent Hertl to the penalty box.

Once again, the Oilers didn't score with the man advantage. But two seconds after Hertl stepped out of the box, and before he got back into the play, Leon Draisaitl found an open Mark Letestu parked in the circle. Letestu's goal didn't help the team's lousy power play stats. But it did tie the game.

The line of Leon Draisaitl, Jujhar Khaira and Ryan Strome hasn't been together long. But they have created some great chemistry. They teamed up for the Oilers' second goal of the period on a beauty three-way passing play that went Khaira to Draisaitl to Strome. That put the Oilers ahead 2-1.

Go hard to the net

They say you should go hard to the net with your stick on the ice. They say it because it's true. Drake Caggiula did just that in the second period and was briefly credited with the goal that put the Oilers up 3-1. Video review showed that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins pass, intended for Caggiula, actually deflected off a Sharks' defender. Caggiula, who played very well all night,got credited with an assist instead.

The Sharks made it 3-2 on their own deflection about two minutes later.

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Halfway through the third period, Nugent-Hopkins fed a perfect pass to Maroon, who slammed a slap shot past Sharks' goalie Martin Jones to give the Oilers some breathing room.

They looked to need it when the Sharks made it 4-3. But Cam Talbot gave the Oilers solid goaltending when they needed it most, and Strome finished the night with an empty net goal, his sixth of the season, to secure the win.

The 15-17-2 Oilers are, for the moment, six points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They face St. Louis on Thursday and Montreal on Saturday, then get four days off for the Christmas break.