The Edmonton Oilers may have gotten the last laugh against the Vancouver Canucks last year, but that doesn’t take away from the fact they lost all four regular-season matchups handily.
Vancouver walloped the Oilers on the scoreboard, too, outscoring them 21-7, a three-to-one clip. Edmonton clearly remembered that in the playoffs, securing a Game 7 victory over the Canucks en route to a Stanley Cup Final berth, though it remained to be seen how they would come out Saturday night during their first meeting of the 2024-25 campaign.
What’s clear is that the Oilers didn’t forget, laying a 7-2 licking on the home-side Canucks that included a four-goal third period that chased Kevin Lankinen from the net. Oilers captain Connor McDavid knows how important these games are.
“Certainly, it certainly does,” he said, when asked if these wins mean a little bit more. “Everytime you play a team where there’s a little bit of a rivalry and you find a way to get a win, especially in their building, it’s always big for momentum. The guys should feel good about themselves.”
By the end of the night, Connor Brown had two goals, McDavid and Mattias Janmark had three points, while Leon Draisaitl, Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman all had multi-point outings, too.
The Oilers got the jump early, as 2:48 into the game Draisaitl opened the scoring seconds after a power play expired and the team would carry that lead into the first intermission. They would build that lead in the second, with quick goals from Corey Perry and Viktor Arvidsson 73 seconds apart, but then collars got tight. Vancouver responded with a pair of their own, as Elias Pettersson and Filip Hronek tickled twine within two minutes.
All of a sudden, the Oilers were in a familiar spot. In Game 7 of the second round last year against the Canucks, Edmonton was up 3-0 when Vancouver put up two in four minutes in the third period. Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch called a timeout then to calm his troops, and did so once again last night.
“Fortunately, we’ve been in that situation in this building before,” said McDavid. “We gave up two quick ones and a timeout, and get back at it. I thought it was a well-used timeout.
“A lot of momentum, a lot of energy in the building, and it just gave us a chance to get our breath and get back at it.”
The Dys carried momentum into the third period, including a strong opening shift from them, but it would be all for naught. Edmonton unleashed an onslaught of offence, scoring four goals, as their team shooting percentage rose a whole percent, from 7.13 to 8.1 in thanks to the goals.
Connor Brown scored a pair, McDavid one of his own, and Brett Kulak got in the mix with his fourth — yes, fourth — goal of the year.
Knoblauch wouldn’t go so far as to say it was the Oilers most complete game of the season, but the second-year bench boss was happy with the performance.
“I don’t know. When you get timely goals, we can be happy we got seven goals,” he said after the game. “You think ‘oh everything went really well, we won by four, we must’ve dominated.’ I don’t see it that way.
“Tonight, we were able to execute around the net, score some goals, maybe some they wanted back. It feels good, but I don’t know if it was out best.”
Edmonton’s schedule continues on Tuesday night when they host the New York Islanders.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
