- Alex Formenton scored on a breakaway in his first Oilers preseason game, a 5-2 win over Winnipeg
- Roughly 100 protesters gathered outside Rogers Place before puck drop, including superfan Mama Stanley
- Read below for what Formenton and Mike Babcock said after the game
Alex Formenton scored inside Rogers Place on Saturday night. Outside the building, about 100 people were chanting for the Oilers to get rid of him.
The 27-year-old winger played his first NHL preseason game since 2022 and buried a breakaway in Edmonton’s 5-2 win over the Jets. Nobody in the rink booed when it went in.
Watch the goal that stretched the Oilers lead:
After the game, Formenton was asked about the anger over his signing. He did not touch it.
“To be honest, I’ve been laser-focused on trying to make this team and get better every day. Whatever role I have on this team, trying to perfect that.”
Pressed a second time on whether he was blocking out the outside noise, he said close to the same thing. Here’s his full postgame scrum:
Outside was a different scene. Signs read “acquitted does not equal innocent” and “drunk isn’t consent,” and the group chanted “Formie’s got to go, no means no,” per a Canadian Press report from outside the arena.
Mary Loewen, the longtime superfan known as Mama Stanley, stood in that crowd. She walked away from the team earlier this month over the signing, and her petition asking Edmonton to reverse it is closing in on 70,000 signatures.
Edmonton signed Formenton on Sept. 9. He is one of five players from Canada’s 2018 world junior team who were acquitted last year of sexual assault charges, and he had not appeared in an NHL game since 2022.
Mike Babcock ran his first bench in Edmonton on Saturday and got a question about his new winger.
“Pretty good, eh? He can skate a little bit. What a difference-maker he’s going to be for us. Elite penalty killer, puts pressure on the other team. I thought him, Joe and Docker were unreal.”
Catch the rest of Babcock’s media availability:
Formenton skated with Mathieu Joseph and Colton Dach and drew top penalty-kill minutes next to Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard and Ryan Shea. One preseason game in, he looks like a fourth-liner who makes this roster.
