"Magnus Paajarvi has spent this season either struggling to find his way with the Edmonton Oilers, or shoring up his confidence with the Oklahoma City Barons of the American Hockey League team.

Neither of which was the game plan for the sophomore.

On Saturday, Paajarvi finally started to look like the player who scored 15 goals for Edmonton in his rookie season. Playing alongside Shawn Horcoff and Ales Hemsky, he left Saturday's 4-3 overtime win over the Ottawa Senators with an assist and his first goal of this season.

"It feels good," said the winger, who now has seven points in 35 National Hockey League games. "I've tried to stay as positive as I can. Obviously, it's been a tough season, but if you stay even keel things are going to come. I think that's very, very important for me right now.

"I do love to play with those two. They're veterans, they know where to go. If you give them a little bit of extra time, they can make really good plays. You could see that when Hemmer gave it to Horc. I had just wanted to drive the net and create some chaos and they took advantage of that."

"I told him today, I'd never get mad if he was trying to make plays," said Horcoff. "A lot of times, when things aren't going well, you try and keep things simple, but when you don't try anything, how do you get any offence? I said try and make plays, I'll be that high guy, because he's got real good skill.

"Hopefully this will give him some confidence.""