GAME RECAP: Canucks 5, Oilers 2

EDMONTON, AB - Forwards Adam Erne and Raphael Lavoie scored the only goals for the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night in a 5-2 defeat to the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena.

Erne, suiting up for the Oilers this pre-season on a professional tryout, opened the scoring to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission on a spin-around shot that beat Thatcher Demko with 1:26 remaining in the first period.

Quick strikes from Canucks captain Quinn Hughes over a two-minute span in the middle frame turned Vancouver's deficit into a 2-1 lead before the hosts recorded three power-play goals in the final frame through Andrei Kuzmenko, Elias Pettersson and Phillip Di Giuseppe to take control of the contest with a four-goal lead.

Lavoie's first of the '23-24 preseason only served as consolation as the Oilers attempted to battle their way back into the match, but to no avail.

"We're always competing hard," Lavoie said post-game. "We never give up, and we had a little push there at the end, but unfortunately it wasn't enough."

"There's high expectation in this locker room, so our guys are competing very hard every day and we're trying to bring that into the season and do well throughout the year."

Mattias Janmark, Brandon Sutter and Philip Broberg recorded assists in the defeat, while netminder Stuart Skinner made 18 saves on 21 shots.

The Oilers continue their pre-season road trip on Monday night when they head to Climate Pledge Arena to face the Seattle Kraken to finish off five exhibition matches in seven days.

"I think we've got a lot of good things done here over the over this last ten days going back to the start of training camp," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. "But I thought we came into a tough building versus basically [the full] Vancouver Canucks lineup, and really like the way we started tonight. I thought we gave ourselves a chance by playing fast, getting on top of them and doing and controlling most of the game through the first half.

"We made a mistake here or there and it kind of compounded. We took some penalties, but we'll learn from it and move on."

FIRST PERIOD

If you want to crack this deep and loaded Oilers lineup, you have to earn it.

Professional tryout Adam Erne is making a strong case for himself to earn an NHL contract this Training Camp, and the centre came up with the opening goal on Saturday to help his cause.

Defenceman Darnell Nurse connected with Mattias Janmark with a terrific two-line pass from behind the Oilers net, leading to the Swede driving to the Canucks net on netminder Thatcher Demko and forcing as rebound into the danger area. Erne was in the right position to pick up the puck and tuck a spin-around finish into the Vancouver net for the 1-0 lead with 1:26 remaining in the opening frame.

Erne is a veteran of 355 NHL games with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Red Wings, most recently recording eight goals and 18 points in 61 games for Detroit during the '22-23 NHL campaign.

SECOND PERIOD

Quinn Hughes, the Canucks newly-minted captain, certainly turned things around for the Canucks in the middle frame.

The defenceman potted both of Vancouver's second-period goals to erase the deficit from Adam Erne's opening goal. Hughes showed great hand-eye coordination to record the equalizer on a two-on-one with Phillip Di Giuseppe to bat the puck out of mid-air and past Skinner to tie the contest at 11:25 of the middle frame.

Just under two minutes later, Hughes was back at it, circling the Oilers zone and throwing a backhander toward the Oilers goal that snuck past Stuart Skinner at the near post to flip the script from a 1-0 Oilers lead to a 2-1 deficit with nine-and-a-half minutes left in the period.

After outshooting the Canucks 14-4 in the opening frame, Vancouver roared back to lead 18-17 through two periods with a 13-3 shot advantage in the second period.

THIRD PERIOD

In the final frame, things didn't improve for the Blue & Orange.

Markus Niemelainen was in the box to begin the final frame as a carry-over from a high-sticking call on Kuzmenko, but a tripping penalty to Brandon Sutter on Pettersson only 17 seconds into the period meant the Oilers would have to kill a 5-on-3 for the Canucks.

Kuzmenko made the Oilers pay when he wired a wrist shot from the top of the circles that caught a piece of Skinner's pad on the way through, but couldn't prevent it from nestling into the bottom-left corner of Edmonton's net only 40 seconds into the final period.

Just past the five-minute mark, Pettersson added the second of three power-play goals for the Canucks in the third period when he sniped one top shelf on Skinner before Di Guiseppe deflected home the 5-1 goal three minutes later.

Raphael Lavoie was able to pull one back for Edmonton only 26 seconds after Di Giuseppe's deflection, with the winger firing a strong wrister past Thatcher Demko at 11:18 of the third period after defenceman Philip Broberg showed great speed to burst out of the Oilers zone and create a two-on-one opportunity for the Blue & Orange.

The Oilers ended the game in defeat to fall to 2-2-1 in pre-season action.

PARTING WORDS

Lavoie on generating offence but remaining resolute with his defensive responsibilities:

"You've got to be reliable defensively. You've got to be really able to earn the trust, the coaches' trust, and eventually chip in for a goal here and there and that's what I'm trying to do."

Lavoie on his biggest takeaways from this pre-season:

"How fast the game is. There's a big step. Guys are faster, guys are smarter because the execution is there, so just trying to keep up with the pace is the biggest thing for me."

Coach Woodcroft gives his thoughts on the game:

"I thought Raphael Lavoie scored a really nice goal. He got himself inside the dots in a scoring position. Bourgault had some nice shifts. Hamblin had some nice shifts. Those were the guys up front on the back end, obviously, and Gleason made some plays. Niemelainen continues to impress, Broberg and Desharnais had good moments, and all of them had learning moments as well. But I think some of our kids are really taking a step. As I said, that was their lineup right there. They're a good team, and I really liked the first period and probably the first half of the second period."

Coach Woodcroft on what he's liked from his team during this tough pre-season stretch:

"I like where we're at right now in terms of some of the things that we've covered. Most of them have been on the defensive side of things. We haven't spent a lot of time on the offensive side of things just yet. We haven't iced a full lineup just yet, so we're anxious to take this day tomorrow to come together as a team off the ice so that we can prepare to attack the last three pre-season games with a certain type of intensity and get closer towards what our opening day lineup will be."