GAME RECAP: Canucks 8, Oilers 1

VANCOUVER, BC - The Edmonton Oilers were handed a heavy defeat in the opening game of their 2023-24 NHL season on Wednesday night, with Brock Boeser recording four goals and a natural hat trick for the Vancouver Canucks in an 8-1 victory at Rogers Arena.

"I saw us lose a ton of battles; things that normally are hallmarks of our game didn't show up," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. "I thought it was pre-season level of intensity, pre-season level of execution and nowhere near where we need to be in order to win a hockey game in the regular season of the National Hockey League."

Boeser, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller combined to record 12 points against Jack Campbell and Stuart Skinner, who stopped 25 of Vancouver's 33 shots after Skinner entered the game in relief following Boeser's hat-trick goal in the second period.

"There wasn't a lot of help," Connor McDavid said. "I thought we hung both of our guys out to dry, and that's never what you want to do."

The Oilers penalty kill allowed three goals on six power plays for the Canucks, while Leon Draisaitl was able to convert Edmonton's only goal of the evening on the man advantage.

The two Pacific Division opponents will rematch in Edmonton on Saturday night at Rogers Place.

"Go back to the drawing board and figure it out," McDavid said. "There's lots of lessons there for us. It sucks that this happens on the first game of the year, but these nights happen. We're looking forward to playing them again Saturday."

FIRST PERIOD

The Canucks quickly wiped away what began as a very bright start for the Oilers.

Connor McDavid opened the game with a bang by blowing up defenceman Filip Hronek along the half-boards in Vancouver's zone during the game's early moments before Brett Kulak jumped up into the rush a minute later to create Edmonton's first dangerous chance, but netminder Thatcher Demko stood tall to deny the early change for the Stony Plain product.

The top line kept the Oilers buzzing, with Evander Kane, McDavid and Connor Brown (who was making his regular-season debut in Blue & Orange) coming close to scoring on a lengthy offensive zone shift.

Brown and Kane both got shots on goal off a zone entry created by McDavid before Kane connected on a pass in front to Brown off a nice dangle below the goal line, However, the golden opportunity was broken up by a Canucks defender's stick.

Edmonton's legendary 32.4 percent power play from last season earned the first opportunity, but momentum swapped from a good penalty kill for Vancouver and sparked a two-goal stretch for the Canucks in the span of 3:21 of the first period to take the lead permanently.

After Conor Garland got behind Kulak and onto the end of Pettersson's back-door saucer pass to open the scoring, Boeser doubled the hosts' advantage with a sharp shot from one knee inside the left circle that beat Campbell post-in at 8:33 of the opening period.

"I think Vancouver did a good job. They played fast; they got in behind us," Kulak said. "But it's on us. We need to play our structure, play sound and be stronger and keep the puck to the outside and eliminate the dangerous scoring chances. We didn't do that tonight."

The Oilers didn't generate their best response until the final 10 seconds of the period when McDavid was hindered by a hold from J.T. Miller to set up a power play of 1:57 to begin the second period.

SECOND PERIOD

When the bounces aren't in your favour, it's a tough task getting anything going.

Boeser had everything come up his way on Wednesday night as he completed the natural hat trick to increase Vancouver's advantage to a sizeable 4-0 lead in the second period. The winger batted a rebound out of mid-air at the left post just under four minutes into the second period before getting the benefit of a lucky bounce off his shinpad on the power play that fooled Campbell to bring the hates to the ice.

That spelt the end of Campbell's night between the pipes before Skinner entered in relief for his partner who allowed four goals on 16 shots, but the blame would ultimately fall on the entire group's collective effort.

"We were at that stage where we're trying to stem the tide a little bit and change momentum. In the end, it didn't work," Woodcroft said of replacing Campbell. "We didn't get much better as the game wore on. We moved pieces around, all that kind of stuff, but in the end, all of us were not good enough."

"Throughout the full game, they brought higher levels of compete and were able to convert on their chances that they had," defenceman Darnell Nurse said. "So just not good enough from us."

With Edmonton's third opportunity on the power play, Leon Draisaitl gave the Oilers life with a tight-angle one-timer off the feed from McDavid that cut into Vancouver's advantage – albeit only for a few minutes.

The three-goal deficit was shortlived for Edmonton after Pettersson picked up another power-play goal for the Canucks almost three minutes later with a shot through traffic that beat Skinner far post.

THIRD PERIOD

The Canucks improved to 2-for-3 with the man advantage off Pettersson's tally and would get plenty more opportunities from there as the Oilers ran into more penalty trouble.

Boeser notched his first career four-goal game with a back-door tap-in that marked the first of back-to-back Canucks goals in 1:13 of the final frame that improved their lead to 7-1 with over 13 minutes left in regulation.

J.T Miller notched their third power-play goal off a snipe top shelf on Skinner before Dakota Joshua added their eighth right before the five-minute mark to cap off a tough night for the Oilers.

PARTING WORDS

Woodcroft in his team's poor performance in their season opener:

"We laid an egg tonight. We all own it. We're all in this one together, and the bottom line is we're at a pre-season level of work ethic and a pre-season level of execution – all of us – and we got a lesson in regular season work ethic and regular season battle level. We were not good enough tonight to a man, every single one. "

Woodcroft on Dylan Holloway, who blocked a hard shot in the third period:

"I haven't seen him after the game. I haven't talked to the trainers yet, but I thought that was for a young player putting his body on the line. That's the type of commitment that you need, and I thought that was a positive play on his behalf."

Kulak on if the Oilers didn't arrive ready to play:

"I don't know if that's fair. I think everyone's ready to play. We're eager to play game one and everyone's in here preparing and excited to go, but it comes out and that was the outcome that happened. We would like to restart the clock and start the game over, but the reality is we can't do that and we've got to move on to game two."

McDavid on the Canucks replacing Demko in the final 10 minutes of the game and using the first power-play unit up seven goals:

"I have not seen that [before]. It's not like DeSmith is an EBUG or anything like that, so I thought that was interesting. Anytime you roll out the first power play unit it's not ideal, but not a situation you want to be in and obviously we don't like that."