VANCOUVER \u2014 \u201cIt was weird to be excited about the ninth (goal),\u201d mused Connor McDavid. \u201cBut given the situation \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
After dropping a 6-5 game in overtime against the Canucks on Opening Night in Edmonton, the Oilers came back with a 9-7 win in Vancouver on Thursday that left absolutely no one satisfied. Even when Leon Draisaitl made it 9-6 with just over 10 minutes to play, this one was in doubt.<\/p>\n
But, there are a lot of reasons to doubt the Oilers right now, a leaky ship that sails home for repairs now before hosting Seattle on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The goaltending is at an ECHL level through two games, the defensive structure simply nonexistent. If new head coach Mike Babcock is teaching a defensive system, he may need a fresh chalkboard. Because no one here is picking up whatever he\u2019s laying down when it comes to D-zone coverage.<\/p>\n
Things felt pretty sweet when it was 8-2 for Edmonton halfway through the game, two four-goal periods seemingly putting this one to bed by the 30-minute mark.<\/p>\n
But by the time McDavid faced the microphones, most of the good had been washed away by five more Vancouver goals, and the realization that Edmonton has allowed 12 regulation goals in the opening two games of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor 30, 40 minutes, it was what the game should look like for us. What it could look like for us,\u201d said McDavid, who had a goal and four assists. \u201cOffence has never been the real problem around here. We understand that. You\u2019d like it to be a lot cleaner than that coming down the stretch, but ultimately, a win\u2019s a win in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n
An uglier win you\u2019ll seldom see.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one’s in here saying \u2018Way to go!\u2019 We understand the game’s got to look a little bit different,\u201d agreed the captain. \u201cBut I thought the first 40 is what it could look like a lot of the time. What it should look like a lot of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Zach Hyman the latest Oiler to find his way to the injury list, Edmonton trotted out a first line of McDavid between Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin. While that unit would pile up four goals and 10 points Thursday, the other three lines \u2014 a collection of third lines at best \u2014 chipped in mightily, scoring three goals, including the first of Owen Michaels’ pro career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big guys played well. Michaels\u2019 line played really good,\u201d said Babcock. \u201cMichaels, thank goodness for him. Good for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
While a rookie like Michaels has been a revelation, and veteran Trent Frederic (one goal) continued to look like a much-improved player from what he has been thus far in Edmonton, a couple of holes have emerged on the blue line in Jake Walman and Shakir Mukhamadullin.<\/p>\n
The two were minus-3 and minus-4, respectively, Thursday, with Walman struggling both with and without the puck. Meanwhile, the six-foot-five Mukhamadullin was once again shaky with the biscuit and soft in front of his own net, with physical play being the one quality the Oilers were hoping to see from a big, rangy No. 6 defenceman.<\/p>\n
Either of those two are candidates for a press-box seat Saturday against Seattle, with both Ty Emberson and Spencer Stastney on the Oilers\u2019 roster and waiting for the first action of the 2026-27 campaign.<\/p>\n
Then there is the goaltending.<\/p>\n
On Friday morning the Oilers awoke with a team save percentage of .727, dead last in the NHL. Tristan Jarry, who was horrid in his first start, sits at .739, while Devon Levi \u2014 who disintegrated in his maiden start as an Oiler \u2014 has a .682 save percentage and a 7.02 goals against average post-Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Is Babcock worried about his goaltending?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you’re Levi here tonight, you haven’t really played (with Edmonton), you probably got a little nervous when it got off kilter. The puck bounced off you a little bit,\u201d excused Babcock. \u201cIf it if it wasn’t this early, I might be (worried). But we’ll just get back to work and make sure we look after them good. Control what we can control.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least one facet of the Oilers’ arsenal has found traction. They\u2019ve scored 14 goals in two games, and all the important guys \u2014 including Podkolzin, who already has three goals \u2014 are firing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first game, we played OK for a little bit,\u201d Babcock assessed. \u201cBut tonight we played well for a big chunk of time. So we’re going to build off that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was Vancouver bad? Yes, they were reminiscent of the team that finished dead last in the NHL standings last season.<\/p>\n
The Canucks had five shots on net halfway through the game, and late in period two had allowed eight goals while directing only seven pucks at Levi\u2019s net.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s find a little love for the Oilers too. At least for their work through 40 minutes, before a lazy third resulted in three Canucks goals.<\/p>\n
The Oilers lined up without their projected second-line centre (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins), their third-line centre (Jason Dickinson), their top right winger (Hyman) and a Top 6 left winger in Matt Savoie.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s two-fifths of the power play, and a major chunk of the expected production on a team that scored 14 goals against Vancouver in their season-opening home and home series. The Oilers walked away with three points, lucky considering the level of defensive play and goaltending that has been rolled out to start the Babcock era.<\/p>\n
Two games, two records for Evan Bouchard. On Thursday, he became the first NHL defenceman since 1980 to notch a hat trick on opening night. And with one goal and two assists Thursday, Bouchard breaks the record for points in the first two games of the season by an NHL D-man with eight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 \u201cIt was weird to be excited about the ninth (goal),\u201d mused Connor McDavid. \u201cBut given the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-917877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917877","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=917877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}