With four of their top seven forwards on the injured list, it would figure the Edmonton Oilers might be struggling to score.
But that has not been the case through the first two games of the season. Not even close.
After taking a 6-5 overtime loss to visiting Vancouver in the opener Tuesday, the Oilers rebounded Thursday with a 9-7 victory in Vancouver.
The Oilers will try to light the goal lamp at the same rate while tightening things up in their own zone when they play host to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday.
“We know we can be way better,” said Oilers coach Mike Babcock. “What I saw (Thursday) was a group that could play right and knew what they were doing, and then I saw a group that didn’t do it. So, the main thing is if you know you can do it, now you got to find a way to just repeat, repeat, rinse, repeat, do it again.”
Connor McDavid had a goal and four assists, Leon Draisaitl added two goals and an assist and Evan Bouchard had a goal and two helpers for the Oilers, who outshot Vancouver 14-2 in the first period in taking a 4-0 lead. They pushed their lead to 8-2 before the Canucks scored with 0.1 seconds left in the second.
Then the Oilers, who were without injured forwards Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jason Dickinson and Matthew Savoie, had to hang on.
“No one is in here being, you know, ‘Way to go,'” McDavid said. “Obviously we understand the game has got to look a little bit different, but I thought, the first 40 (minutes) is what it could look like a lot of the time, and what it should look like a lot of the time. Guys working hard, tracking back, responsible with the puck and just kind of rolling over them. That 40 minutes we have to replicate night in and night out.”
The Kraken got their season off to a good start Thursday in Calgary with a 6-1 victory, spoiling the Flames’ final home opener at the Saddledome before they move into a new facility next year.
Defenseman Vince Dunn posted one goal and two assists for the Kraken. Jared McCann added three assists, and Matty Beniers and Kaapo Kakko each had a goal and an assist. Goaltender Joey Daccord made 24 saves and preserved his shutout until 3:25 remained.
“It’s good to see us start that way,” said Dunn, whose team took a 3-0 lead by the end of the first period. “It’s good to get the confidence rolling. It’s a quick turnaround after preseason, but by the looks of it, the legs feel good by everyone, and I think everyone really got into that game. It was a pretty well-rounded team effort there, so that’s huge.”
Kraken captain Jordan Eberle opened the scoring with a power-play goal at 9:10 of the first period.
“It’s always nice to win the first game,” Eberle said. “It’s a long season. This is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. You have to temper. There’s always video and there’s always things you can improve on. At the end of the day for us to be successful this season, we need to get better over the entire year and we’re going to do that.”
