{"id":866093,"date":"2026-09-30T17:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866093\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T17:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:12:14","slug":"oilers-have-serious-work-to-do-under-babcock-after-season-opening-ot-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866093\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers have ‘serious work to do’ under Babcock after season-opening OT loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started that way on Tuesday, but it wasn\u2019t long before the Oilers found themselves scrambling in their own end, making ill-advised pinches at the opposition’s blue line, and giving goalie Tristan Jarry<\/a>\u00a0very little help in front of the net.<\/p>\n

Jarry, for his part, admitted he needed to be better after giving up six goals on 23 shots. But he faced breakaways, odd-man rushes and open men in front all game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for myself I have to be better in those aspects, too,\u201d Jarry said. \u201cJust talking about my game, I need one or two of those. I think that\u2019s the game changer there and that puts us in a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the score tied 2-2 heading into the third period, Vancouver seemingly put the game away when it scored three goals in the span of 4:05, culminating with Elias Pettersson<\/a>‘s power-play goal at 5:15.<\/p>\n

However, in typical Oilers fashion, their high-powered offense allowed them to battle back and force overtime.<\/p>\n

Evan Bouchard<\/a> was perhaps the biggest reason why, scoring a hat trick and adding two assists for a five-point night. Vasily Podkolzin<\/a>\u00a0also scored twice in the third, including tying the game with a power-play goal with 43 seconds left.<\/p>\n

Yet the game-winning goal was conceded following another defensive lapse at 1:59 of overtime. Canucks forward Paul Cotter<\/a> forced a turnover by Ryan Shea<\/a>\u00a0along the left boards, and he was then given an open lane to the net, where he received a pass from Max Sasson<\/a>\u00a0before lifting a backhand past Jarry.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can tell it was our first regular-season game,\u201d Bouchard said. \u201cWe have to be a lot more detailed than that. Giving up odd-man rushes, giving up five or six (goals), isn\u2019t going to cut it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started that way on Tuesday, but it wasn\u2019t long before the Oilers found themselves scrambling in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-866093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}