{"id":932728,"date":"2026-10-14T13:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/932728\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T13:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:04:11","slug":"oilers-learning-to-win-the-hard-way-with-newfound-defensive-prowess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/932728\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers learning to win the hard way with newfound defensive prowess"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 It was, as Devon Levi<\/a> so eloquently stated, \u201ca great bad game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission, then used their newfound defensive prowess to turn the final 40 minutes into garbage time in a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings. The win capped a perfect three-game California swing, and\u00a0the 5-0-1 Oilers remain the National Hockey League\u2019s only team without a regulation loss this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, it’s pretty impressive how we’re able to score ballistically, and also play a really solid defensive game,\u201d said Oilers goalie Devon Levi, who made a career-high 39 saves, most of the casual variety. \u201cI know the message that Babs sent is that we have better. I mean, if that’s our bad game, that’s a great game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s a great bad game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kings outshot Edmonton 29-10 over the final two periods, and 40-17 on the game. But somehow L.A. never really threatened the Oilers\u2019 fifth straight regulation win in this young season, despite long stretches of possession.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought they had good chances. But they didn’t have Grade A’s, two-on-ones,\u201d said head coach Mike Babcock. \u201cI didn’t think at any time we were fantastic tonight, but McDavid and the big boys were great. The goalie was fantastic. We just swept three games on the road and 4-0 on the road, so life’s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is definitely something happening here, to a team that has never really had a hard, defensive spine in its regular-season arsenal.<\/p>\n

An early 3-0 lead like this always seemed to devolve into a comeback \u2014 or the genuine threat of one \u2014 for the run \u2018n\u2019 gun Oilers of yore. But on a Tuesday night in Los Angeles, they looked like they could have held the Kings off for another 20 minutes, if they\u2019d been asked to.<\/p>\n

Connor McDavid<\/a> celebrated his 800th NHL game with his 33rd career three-point period, scoring on a breakaway and adding two primary assists in Period 1. He assisted on Vasily Podkolzin\u2019s second goal, and empty netter, for a four-point evening, as McDavid torched the Kings in this building for the umpteenth time in his career.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen that before, of that there is no doubt.<\/p>\n

What we haven\u2019t seen is an Oilers team with this kind of defensive backbone at this stage of the season. A backbone, ironically, that might just remind of those hardened 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup champion Kings \u2014 after a few more months of drilling down on Babcock\u2019s systems.<\/p>\n

From the press box we\u2019ve seen a team that defends hard and takes time and space away much more quickly than it ever has before. What does McDavid see from ice level?<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a team that’s upbeat. I see a team that’s energetic,\u201d said the early-season Art Ross leader, with 17 points in six games. \u201cIt’s got speed. It’s aggressive. Wins a lot of puck battles. Those are all great things, and if you do those things night after night, you’re going to put together some wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve watched this team win the firewagon, 5-4 games ever since McDavid was a rookie. But the mission this season is to learn how to win the hard way during the regular season, so that it is ingrained come playoff time.<\/p>\n

So far we\u2019re seeing much evidence to the positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re comfortable in a lot of different situations,\u201d McDavid said. \u201cWe’ve won games 9-7. We’ve come back in games and gotten points. Saturday was a bit of a low event game (3-1 win at San Jose), and we’re comfortable in that too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis team’s building its identity, building its structure. We’re still trying to figure things out as we go, and I think we’re only going to get better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a different look than he\u2019s ever seen here, at this point in a season.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly,\u201d nodded McDavid.<\/p>\n

On this night Evan Bouchard<\/a> calmly collected a pair of second assists to run his totals to 6-8-14 on the season. Perhaps more impressively, Bouchard has been on the ice for 17 even-strength goals for this season, and just two against.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not sure he\u2019s made a mistake yet, so close-to-perfect has his game become.<\/p>\n

\"3232 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.<\/p>\n

Latest episode<\/a><\/p>\n

Podkolzin hit the seven-goal plateau in just his sixth game, on a line with McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (1-1-2), and it strikes us that McDavid and Draisaitl have played side by side all season long. Most times, they\u2019d have been taken apart by now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we get Nuge, Hymes and Savoie back, maybe that’s different,\u201d Babcock said of the injured Ryan Nugent-Hopkins,, Matt Savoie and Zach Hyman, who we expect to return on Thursday versus Utah. \u201cMaybe on a night where you’re not playing great, maybe we can move something around. Right now, there’s not a lot of moves.\u201d<\/p>\n

A coach is never happy, it just comes with the vocation.<\/p>\n

But for a guy installing a new system, with an entire second line on the Injured List and a handful of new players coming out of an abbreviated pre-season, Babcock won\u2019t complain about a .917 start. Or the fact that his team is picking up his systems fairly well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t love this tonight by any means,\u201d he said. \u201cBut our big boys were great, our back end was really solid, and I thought our goaltender was good. I didn’t think our two, three, and four lines were as good as they have been, for whatever reason. But we’re in a good spot for the injuries we have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going to start getting some players back, and we’re going to get way deeper and way harder to play against.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Oilers, \u201chard to play against\u201d used to mean 97, 29 and crew sifting seven past your netminder.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s starting to mean something else in Edmonton now, and that could be seismic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 It was, as Devon Levi so eloquently stated, \u201ca great bad game.\u201d The Edmonton Oilers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,82],"class_list":["post-932728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932728","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=932728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}