{"id":937580,"date":"2026-10-18T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T11:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/937580\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T11:54:16","slug":"oilers-takeaways-mcdavid-leads-the-way-in-beatdown-of-mammoth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/937580\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers Takeaways: McDavid leads the way in beatdown of Mammoth"},"content":{"rendered":"

This, friends, was a beatdown.<\/p>\n

It was a lesson meted out by the old dog to the new pups, those upstarts from Utah who had walked into Edmonton on Thursday and won 4-2, handing the Oilers their first regulation loss.<\/p>\n

Just in case the Mammoth players were thinking, \u201cWe can handle these guys,\u201d the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> gave them something else to think about.<\/p>\n

Connor McDavid<\/a> opened his five-point night with a goal just 40 seconds into the game, and the Oilers took a 5-0 lead into the third period en route to a 6-2 shellacking. It was never close to being close \u2014\u00a0not for a second was the result in doubt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came ready to play,\u201d pronounced Oilers head coach Mike Babcock, who like Zach Hyman opened his post-game briefing with prayers for the folks in Wainwright, Alberta. \u201c(Utah) had just beaten us, we\u2019re in their building on a Saturday night, and anytime somebody beats you \u2014\u00a0anytime you’re playing someone back to back, \u2014\u00a0you\u2019ve got to get to another level the next (night).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe clearly did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two nights after he\u2019s played nearly 26 minutes, McDavid\u2019s ice time came down to a manageable 19:52 in this one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think everybody’s involved,\u201d Hyman said. \u201cI don’t know what the minutes were tonight, but it felt like we were turning lines over pretty quickly, and all four lines contributed. When you do that, and you have everybody involved, it feels like a team win.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDavid is on a career tear, with 23 points in his first eight games this season. It\u2019s his best start ever at age 29, and he\u2019s on pace for 242 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd isn\u2019t he plus-19?\u201d asked Babcock. \u201cIt’s impossible to coach a team when your best player isn’t driving, and this guy’s driving. But he has a bunch of support. We\u2019ve got a lot of workers, which is positive, and you’re going to see our team really grow here as we get people back and get deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edmonton is now 5-0 on the road this season, a franchise record, and 6-1-1 overall. Their .813 points percentage is second only to Carolina (.833) across the NHL. the Hurricanes visit Edmonton on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Remember when we talked so much last season about Trent Frederic<\/a> finding a role on this team? Well, with his second fight of the year, it looks like he\u2019s grabbed on to something he can do.<\/p>\n

Earlier this season Frederic took a fight against Seattle\u2019s Ryan Lindgren, some payback for a hit at last year\u2019s world championships that concussed Evan Bouchard. And on Saturday he exacted some revenge against Utah\u2019s Jack McBain, who had levelled Leon Draisaitl with a dangerous cross-check in the back two nights before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just a team guy stepping up,\u201d said Hyman, who was part of an Oilers entourage that was visibly happy to see Frederic close out that fight with a flurry of uppercuts against McBain. \u201cHe’s a warrior. I mean, he took a couple and then battled his way back in that fight, got his grip, and he’s a tough guy, to say the latest. I think everybody in the locker room values what he brings,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t like the cross-check last game and what had taken place,\u201d Babcock said. \u201cWe never talked about it at all \u2026 with the players. But they all must have talked about it themselves, and looked out for things the way we should have. Freddy did a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edmonton got three players back from injury Saturday, and all three didn\u2019t appear to miss a beat. Hyman (one goal), Colton Dach (16:52, with four hits) and defenceman Jake Walman all came back from injury, and all three took a regular shift in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

Sure, McDavid had five points to lead the way. But when you look at the ice times, this was a departure from the last game, where Babcock over-used his top guys. He\u2019d rather be a four-line team, but he needs guys down there to play better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to (be),\u201d he said pre-game. \u201cWhen you watch (Lines 2, 3 and 4), it\u2019s one-and-done, one-and-done, one-and-done. You can\u2019t be one-and-done. You\u2019ve got to be heavy. The hardest thing about the National Hockey League is, you want to have the puck. But you\u2019re a young guy coming in and you never have the puck. They\u2019re not giving it to you. You\u2019ve got to earn it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you\u2019ve got to win races, you\u2019ve got to win battles. Your stick has got to be a crow bar. Every time you get a chance, you\u2019ve got to win that battle, check it back in the O-zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mathieu Joseph scored on one of his two breakaways Saturday, while we liked the games of Ike Howard, Filip Hallander\u00a0and Frederic.<\/p>\n

Here was how the Oilers set up for his one-game roadie:<\/p>\n

Podkolzin-McDavid-Draisaitl
Kapanen-Dach-Hyman
Formenton-Michaels-Joseph
Hallander-Frederic-Howard<\/p>\n

Ekholm-Bouchard
Shea-Murphy
Walman-Emberson<\/p>\n

As a result of those players coming back, Josh Samanski was sent to AHL Bakersfield earlier in the day. He\u2019ll be better off playing big minutes there than being used in a fourth-line role in Edmonton. Shakir Mukhamadullin came out of the lineup to make room for Walman.<\/p>\n

SPEC\u2019S CHECKS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0McDavid has a point in all eight Oilers games this season \u2026 On this day \u2014 Oct. 17, 2015 \u2014\u00a0Edmonton became the first team in NHL history to have four first overall picks score a goal in the same game. Taylor Hall (2010), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011), Nail Yakupov (2012) & McDavid (2015) all scored in a 5-2 win over the Flames.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This, friends, was a beatdown. It was a lesson meted out by the old dog to the new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-937580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937580","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=937580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}