During the pre-season, I will be posting short summaries of each Oilers game, focusing solely on the play of the Oilers prospect. The idea is to assess the play of various prospects as they continue to work towards the ultimate goal of playing as Edmonton Oilers.

The Oilers’ first game of the season was against what can be loosely described as the Winnipeg Jets. This was a fairly typical road team line-up in the exhibition season populated with AHL players, NHL vets on PTOs and long-shot prospects. As such, the quality of competition made it somewhat difficult to assess the play of Oiler prospects properly. That said, there were some interesting narratives that developed in game one, so let’s take a look below.

O’Reilly, like every other Oilers prospect who played in Penticton, benefitted from playing with a much more competent defensive group. In his first professional game, O’Reilly delivered a modest affirmation of the faith the Oilers had in moving up in the draft to take him. O’Reilly was the best and most consistent Oilers forward all night, showing off his top-drawer defensive game.

His understanding of playing defensive hockey belies his age and experience at the center position. Take a look at this one play of how he handles the defensive zone. He supports his defence very well and is positioned nicely. He tracks the play well, and his positioning down low allows him to be available for outlet passes to transition out of the zone.

The more critical element for O’Reilly’s success will be offence. This will help determine where he fits on an NHL roster.

Last night, he scored his first goal and showed glimpses of what might be. He makes a reception off a great pass from Cam Dineen. He then makes a nice strong drive to the net, and the significant part is the subtle stick angle change he makes to change the shot direction. This is an encouraging sign.

O’Reilly will only see a couple more moments in the NHL, but his first game was a strong one that Oilers management will find encouraging.

Philp played his first professional game in over 16 months. The big, lanky right-shot centre took time away from the game to focus on his personal life. If nothing else comes of his return, I am glad that he is in a good place now. That’s most important.

That said, Noah Philp had a very nice restart to his professional hockey career. He looked rusty in the first period, however, he also looked much quicker than before. This is the key for Philp, as his boots were one of the only questions in his skill set. Whatever else he did since he was away, he clearly worked on his skating. He looks far more explosive. Besides that, we saw what Philp brings: a strong 200-foot game from a right-shot center. Here are a couple of his best shifts of the night and there were many of them to choose from.

Here is the other clip where, but for a great save, Philp likely scores the winner for Edmonton.

Philp also was 70 percent in the faceoff circle tonight. Philp will need some time in the AHL, I believe, but he is very close to playing NHL games and will do so this season.

If I had the cell number for Raphael Lavoie, I would text him and say “don’t ever take a shift off again.”

Lavoie is in a make-or-break camp. He’s been here long enough, proving all he can in the AHL. However, he has this nasty habit of not competing in every single shift of every game. This will be incredibly important if he wants to be a fixture on the bottom six of an NHL team. No question, we saw the one weapon he has, which should be intriguing for the Oilers staff, given the potential lack of scoring in their bottom six.

Yes, it was on the power play, and we really need to see it at 5v5. However, I liked his competition here prior to the goal and his creativity in the cross-ice pass.

When Lavoie asserts himself on shifts, you see these results.

His body size and skills make him very difficult to defend, but he needs to do it on every shift.

Podkolzin had a solid debut with the Oilers. Now, to be fair, he has a fair amount of NHL experience, and this is a roster against which he should play well. However, not only did he play well, he did so from the first shift until the last.

He is a very powerful skater, and he has a great knack for playing the defensive side of the game. I remain unconvinced that the 14-goal season he had with Vancouver is nothing more than anomaly, but time will tell. He lacks a dynamic offensive game, but he is strong on the wall and makes good plays.

He put an exclamation mark on his play with a tremendous shift in overtime that led to the winning goal.

What a tremendous 200-foot shift where he impacted the play all the way down the ice. Oilers’ coaches will want to see this shift from a bottom-six forward.

Podkolzin is likely already the fourth-line left wing, but if he wasn’t, he made a strong opening statement.

Savoie had a solid first performance with the Oilers. His best moments were on the powerplay, but he was fine at 5v5. An encouraging sign was his commitment to the defensive side of the game. He often returned first on transitions and worked hard in his zone. His only modest error was getting too low in his zone on the Jet’s first goal of the game. It allowed a cross-ice pass to his mark, leading to the deflected goal.

It was a fine opening performance, although only facing seven shots limits the praise. The concern that remains is Rodrigue’s size. He sometimes looks and plays a little on the small side. Rodrigue will get another 1/2 game against the Calgary Flames, and he will need to build on last night’s performance.

Nicholl will return to junior sometime this week but has left an impression. Last night was more of what Nicholl has been bringing for a couple of weeks now: he is a very quick player who thinks the game well. He is a little slight, which can be remedied, but even still, he never seems to lose puck battles easily. Every engagement requires the opposition player to battle multiple times for a chance at transition. Nicholl needs to work on his offensive game, but there is also something there. There is no question that this player could outperform his draft position this season by a lot.

Hamblin isn’t really a prospect, but he played very well in a 1C role last night with Vasily Podkolzin and Matthew Savoie. He displayed his trademark quickness and his strong 200-foot game. He was also 6 for 9 in the faceoff circle. I think Hamblin is a perfect player to hold that 13th forward spot for the Oilers. He is strong defender who can play the PK. He is a centre but also can play the wing when needed. More games like tonight should help his cause.

That’s it from the Oilers first pre-season game. See you back here after game number two (and three) against the Calgary Flames in their split squad match-up.