"I felt pretty good, to be honest," Hughes said. "A little jitters at the start, just because we haven't played in a while and it's exciting to go out there and play in front of fans too, but I felt that I went into the game nicely, did what I need to do, got my feet going, made some plays."
Elias Pettersson also made his debut and had an assist on Nic Petan's power-play goal in the second period for Vancouver. Jaroslav Halak made 39 saves.
Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl each scored for Edmonton, and Derek Ryan had the go-ahead goal in the second period. Mike Smith made 35 saves.
Oilers forward Zack Kassian left the game in the third period with an upper-body injury and will be reevaluated Friday.
The teams will play their final preseason game against each other Saturday.
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Lightning 6, Panthers 2: Steven Stamkos scored two power-play goals in the opening minute of the third period for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 6-2 preseason win against the Florida Panthers at Amalie Arena on Thursday.
Stamkos scored 20 seconds into the period during a 5-on-3 to make it 4-1, then again 26 seconds later to make it 5-1.
Corey Perry also scored twice, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Mikhail Sergachev each had two assists, and Brian Elliott made 21 saves for Tampa Bay.
Owen Tippett had a goal and an assist, and Joe Thornton scored for Florida. Spencer Knight made 17 saves before being replaced at the start of the third period by Christopher Gibson, who allowed three goals on six shots.
The teams will play their final preseason game against each other Saturday.
Senators 5, Canadiens 4 (SO):The Ottawa Senators scored four straight goals in a 5-4 shootout preseason win against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Thursday.
Josh Norris, Shane Pinto and Chris Tierney scored in the second period to give Ottawa a 4-2 lead. Norris scored in the first period, and in the fifth round of the shootout, after Connor Brown scored in the fourth round.
Jeff Petry scored the tying goal for Montreal with 1:00 left in the third period. He gave Montreal a 2-0 lead in the first period.
Jake Allen made 28 saves for Montreal, which played its final preseason game. Earlier Thursday, the Canadiens announced that goalie Carey Price
had entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program
. He was out recovering from offseason knee surgery.
Anton Forsberg made 18 saves for Ottawa, which ends its preseason Saturday at the Toronto Maple Leafs.