Connor McDavid put five points on the board as the Edmonton Oilers survived a third-period Vancouver surge for a 9-7 win over the Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday.
The split of the opening home-and-home set leaves Edmonton at 1-0-1 after Vancouver took Tuesday’s opener 6-5 in overtime. The Canucks are 1-1-0 after nearly erasing what had been a six-goal deficit.
Quick facts
- McDavid finished with one goal and four assists for Edmonton.
- Leon Draisaitl scored twice and added an assist; Evan Bouchard had a goal and two assists.
- Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen each posted a goal and an assist.
- Marco Rossi led Vancouver with two goals and an assist, while Elias Pettersson had a goal and two assists.
- Devon Levi stopped 15 shots in his first regular-season appearance for the Oilers.
Edmonton jumped on Vancouver from the opening period and had the building quiet before the first intermission. Podkolzin, filling in for injured winger Zach Hyman on the top power-play group, opened the scoring at 9:26 by finishing Kapanen’s pass across the crease.
Owen Michaels followed with his first NHL goal at 14:26, burying a one-timer from the low slot after Mathieu Joseph fed him from behind the net. Sixteen seconds later, Bouchard’s shot created a rebound that caromed off Canucks defenseman Tom Willander and crossed the line for a 3-0 lead.
Ryan Shea made it 4-0 at 19:32, scoring his first goal as an Oiler after McDavid spun away from pressure and found the defenseman joining the rush late.
Draisaitl pushed the margin to five just 27 seconds into the second, banking the puck in from below the goal line off Kevin Lankinen’s back shoulder. Vancouver finally answered when Paul Cotter drove into the slot and scored through traffic at 4:31.
The response came 33 seconds later. Trent Frederic jammed home a rebound to restore Edmonton’s five-goal cushion, but Brock Boeser cut the score to 6-2 at 5:47 with a rush chance that went through Jake Wallman’s skates and over Levi’s blocker.
Boeser’s turnover on a Vancouver power play opened the door for Edmonton’s short-handed burst. McDavid intercepted a drop pass, beat Pettersson around the net-front route and scored at 7:49. Kapanen then broke in alone and scored short-handed at 8:23, making it 8-2.
That goal ended Lankinen’s night. He surrendered eight goals on 20 shots before Leevi Merilainen entered at 8:23 of the second period, making his Canucks debut after Vancouver claimed him off waivers from the Ottawa Senators last Friday. Merilainen made 10 saves.
Arshdeep Bains gave Vancouver a little life with 0.1 seconds remaining in the second, collecting a rebound after Levi made two strong stops. Rossi then scored from close range at 1:53 of the third and got another at 4:43 when a deflection struck his shoulder and slipped through.
Pettersson brought the Canucks within two on the power play at 7:37, hammering Rossi’s cross-ice feed over Levi’s glove from above the right circle. But Edmonton steadied itself on its own man advantage, with Draisaitl taking McDavid’s pass and firing under Merilainen at 9:26 for the 9-6 goal.
Jamie Oleksiak scored his first goal for Vancouver at 18:31, finishing a rebound with a one-timer from above the left circle. It was the final push in a night where the Oilers built an enormous lead, then had to hold the line through a seven-goal Canucks finish.
Levi, acquired from the Buffalo Sabres on July 1, earned the win in his Edmonton regular-season debut. Vancouver’s other multi-point scorers included Boeser, Cotter, Bains and Oleksiak, each with a goal and an assist.
