- Connor McDavid piled up a goal and four assists in Vancouver
- Edmonton led 8-2 in the second and still had to sweat it out
- Read below for the full breakdown and video highlights of the 9-7 game
Connor McDavid found his game in a hurry.
Edmonton’s captain had a goal and four assists Thursday as Edmonton beat the Vancouver Canucks 9-7 at Rogers Arena. It’s the 15th five-point game of his career, and it came two nights after the Canucks stunned the Oilers 6-5 in overtime on opening night in Edmonton.
The first period was all Oilers. Edmonton outshot Vancouver 15-2 and went to the room up 4-0 on goals from Vasily Podkolzin, Owen Michaels (his first in the NHL), Evan Bouchard and Ryan Shea. McDavid set up Shea’s goal with 27.5 seconds left after spinning off a check.
Leon Draisaitl made it 5-0 less than 30 seconds into the second. Then came the dagger.
With Vancouver on the power play, McDavid jumped on a Brock Boeser drop pass, walked around Elias Pettersson and slid a backhand past Kevin Lankinen to make it 7-2. Kasperi Kapanen scored another shorthanded goal 34 seconds later, and Lankinen was pulled after allowing eight goals on 20 shots.
Check out the full video highlights:
That should’ve been the end of it. Instead, the Canucks scored four straight. Arshdeep Bains beat the second-period buzzer with 0.1 seconds left, Marco Rossi scored twice early in the third and Pettersson one-timed a power-play goal to cut it to 8-6.
Draisaitl stopped the bleeding with his second of the night on a McDavid feed. Jamie Oleksiak added one more for Vancouver with 1:29 left, but that was as close as it got.
Bouchard had a goal and two assists after his three-goal opener. He’s now the first defenseman in NHL history with eight points through his team’s first two games of a season.
Devon Levi made 15 saves in his Oilers debut, and Edmonton did all of this without Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman.
Two games between these teams produced 27 goals. Here’s how we summed up the home-and-home:
Next up, Edmonton hosts the Seattle Kraken on Saturday and Vancouver welcomes the Calgary Flames.
