By TERRY JONES

There have been plenty of players who have been banished before.

Robert Nilsson isn't the first to spend a couple games in to the press box as a healthy scratch and return to score a goal and an assist and be the first star of a game.

But he may be the first to have been pulled from the lineup as punishment for lack of effort and being rewarded with a call-up to the NHL before he got back into the lineup.

Now the story can be told.

Kelly Buchberger, coaching young Mr. Nilsson in Springfield in the AHL after he'd been sent down five games into this NHL season, called Nilsson into his office to inform him he was going to be a healthy scratch for the game that night.

The next morning, Buchberger called him into his office again to tell him he'd been called up by the Oilers.

When Nilsson arrived, coach Craig MacTavish called him into his office and had a conversation which was a little less positive than he usually has with an over-the-moon kid getting a call-up.

"Yeah, that's about how it went," laughed MacTavish.

Four hours after Nilsson led the Oilers to the 5-2 win over the Phoenix Coyotes Thursday night, dad Kent Nilsson answered his cell phone in Stockholm, Sweden.

"Yeah, he told me that," said the man who also happens to be the Oilers European scout.

"He told me it didn't feel right when he got called up when Bucky had made him a healthy scratch."

His 22-year-old ultra-talented kid was probably one of the few players in the history of hockey who ever got called up from the minors while they were being benched.

"I was a healthy scratch and then got called up. Bucky didn't like what he saw and put me in the press box. The next day I got the call-up."

Arriving in Edmonton, he said MacTavish did indeed call him into his office for a heart-to-heart.

"He just told me that I have the tools to be here for a long time and what I have to do to stay here and make sure this doesn't happen again," said Nilsson.

"He told me if I worked hard and made a mistake, that was one thing, but if I don't work and make mistakes, that's when I was going to get in trouble. He talked a lot about working hard in practice, too."

Nilsson, who started the season with the Oilers after a terrific training camp, hasn't been sent back to Springfield.

But he was banished to the press box for the previous two games as a reminder about work ethic.

"I wanted to show everybody that it wasn't going to happen again," said Nilsson of coming out of the doghouse in a big way.

"It felt good to contribute like that. We had won two games in a row and I didn't want to be the piece that made us lose. It felt good to help the team keep on winning."

His dad, who tended to have some of the same issues as a Calgary Flame before he came to Edmonton and won a Stanley Cup, has been on the phone almost every day with him to deliver the message as well.

"He told me to be focused and not take it negatively." said Robert of his father's advice.

For his part, Kent said it's great having his son playing for the same team he works for as a scout.

"It's really easy for me because now I only have to cheer for one team."

Dad, other than his regular phone conversations with his son, keeps it professional with the team.

"I stay out of all that. There's no conflict at all. Whatever the coach does with the players is for the best of the team."

He said he gets to watch his son about three games a month on television, usually about 3 a.m. in Sweden.

"He's progressing a lot, I think", he said of the kid who has four goals and 14 assists in 35 NHL games.

"He's listening to the coaches more. He's doing more of the small things right. He's starting to do the things you have to do to play the game.

"He gets moody, very moody. But I think it's good to make him mad. When you make him mad, he works harder."