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High-stakes opening night debut
Vancouver Canucks got a pretty wild 6–5 overtime win over the Edmonton Oilers on opening night, and it wrecked coach Mike Babcock’s official regular season bench debut with Edmonton. The divisional game came out hot, real high intensity right away, both teams trading momentum swings early, then Vancouver started to control things more in the middle portion. Even with the home crowd pushing hard for Edmonton’s updated coaching leadership, defense and basic structure fell apart on both sides, and that’s how you got this messy, high scoring affair. Vancouver then used structural mistakes during the middle periods to build what looked like a pretty solid lead.
Canucks surge to a three-goal cushion
Vancouver set the tempo in the middle segment of the game, and they kept converting turnover openings, plus capitalizing on those bursty rush looks. By the third period, the Canucks had ballooned the edge to 5–2, powered by a shorthanded push and some pretty sharp pressure in the offensive zone. Edmonton’s defensive routine kept slipping, and it gave up high danger scoring chances that made goaltender Tristan Jarry look more and more exposed. The Canucks forecheck, it almost seemed like it completely dulled Edmonton’s attack, so Babcock’s group spent a chunk of the third frame playing catch-up in defensive recovery.
Oilers erase deficit in wild surge
Edmonton didn’t seem interested in rolling on home ice. They came out in the third with an aggressive stampede led by their main offensive pieces. Rearguard Evan Bouchard took center stage by finishing the night with a hat-trick and five points total, while Vasily Podkolzin chipped in two key goals, including ones against his former club. Edmonton then scored three straight unanswered goals to close it out, and in the final period they got a power-play equalizer from Podkolzin with less than a minute left in regulation to knot it up 5–5. That late surge forced extra time, and it let Edmonton grab a point after erasing that three-goal gap.
Cotter seals overtime victory
The comeback nearly grabbed the whole thing in extra time but it ended just a bit differently, forward Paul Cotter, in his own Canucks team debut, finished it off after putting up a two goal night. After a defensive zone turnover, created by his forecheck, Cotter grabbed a pass from Max Sasson and beat Jarry at 1:59 into overtime, sealing the 6–5 win for Vancouver as visitors. Edmonton did get a standings point because of that late game fight, but Babcock after the game still talked about the team’s defensive mistakes and the poor decision making. The Canucks left Rogers Place with two points, and now Edmonton has to deal with the defensive issues fast before the rematch.
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