{"id":236946,"date":"2025-10-24T12:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T12:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/236946\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T12:58:08","slug":"edmonton-oilers-not-satisfied-with-start-to-nhl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/236946\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers not satisfied with start to NHL season"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 It hasn\u2019t felt like it at times, but the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> are off to their best start in the last three years.<\/p>\n

Edmonton won a wild one on Thursday as Vasily Podkolzin<\/a> scored the game winner with just over a minute remaining and added an assist as the Oilers mounted a third-period comeback to defeat the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> 6-5.<\/p>\n

David Tomasek, Adam Henrique<\/a>, Andrew Mangiapane<\/a>, Leon Draisaitl<\/a> and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins<\/a> also scored for the Oilers (4-3-1) who have won two in a row.<\/p>\n

By contrast, through their first eight games of 2023, the Oilers were 2-5-1, and in 2024 they were 3-4-1. Both seasons ended with trips to the Stanley Cup final.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sitting here at 4-3-1, there have been some seasons with a lot tougher trekking from game eight,\u201d said Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse<\/a>, who picked up a pair of assists Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith that said, I think our group knows we have to be a lot better. We came with an emphasis in camp and the start of the year that we want to have a good start. Fortunately, we are in a position here where we do have a winning record here and we can build on it. It\u2019s grabbing it now as a group.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oilers seemed fortunate to gain the win over the Habs.<\/p>\n

Despite seemingly being outplayed, Edmonton grabbed a 3-1 lead midway through the second period. <\/p>\n

The lacklustre play caught up with the Oilers late in the second as Montreal came storming back with three goals in less than two minutes to knot it up, including a pair by Cole Caufield<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Montreal took a 5-3 lead before Edmonton mounted their own quick comeback, scoring a pair of power play markers in a span of 58 seconds just past the midway mark of the third.<\/p>\n

Podkolzin then played hero, sending a backhanded shot in while falling to his knees for his first goal of the season with just 1:09 remaining on the game clock.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been there a million times, and the guys have been there a million times,\u201d Podkolzin said. \u201cDown by two for the Oilers is nothing, I guess. And the guys have proved it a million times. It wasn\u2019t a great feeling, we didn\u2019t play well defensively and we\u2019ve got to play much better as a top team. But finding a way to get two points was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edmonton\u2019s second power-play goal came on an unsportsmanlike conduct call to Josh Anderson<\/a> right after Draisaitl scored on the man advantage. Temperatures were high in the Montreal dressing room about the call.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still trying to figure that out,\u201d Caufield said. \u201cI think the refs kind of took over the game there and kudos to them for winning it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the victory, the Oilers know they still have a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just wasn\u2019t good enough,\u201d said Nugent-Hopkins. \u201cWe took advantage of some power plays at the end that we scored on, and then a really big one there by Podz. It was a good battle. I thought we started to push at the end, but I would say for most of the game it was not our standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch echoed the sentiment. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe the last 10 minutes of the game, it looked like we were a team,\u201d he said. \u201cWe played well. But the first 50 it was disorganized, it was a lack of work. It didn\u2019t look very good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of things to clean up. We can only get better right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oilers captain Connor McDavid<\/a> picked up three assists in the contest and Tomasek recorded his first career NHL goal in his seventh game. <\/p>\n

The 29-year-old native of Prague previously played for Farjestads BK Karlstad in the Swedish Elite League, and led that league in points with 57 in 47 games last season.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2025.<\/p>\n

Shane Jones, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 It hasn\u2019t felt like it at times, but the Edmonton Oilers are off to their best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-236946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}