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I Watched This Game: Canucks play spoiler in Oilers home opener

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner
|
Sep 30 2026, 8:51 am
I Watched This Game: Canucks play spoiler in Oilers home opener
Paul Cotter celebrates his first goal with the Vancouver Canucks. (Perry Nelson/Imagn Images)

Now that’s entertainment.

The odds are stacked against the Vancouver Canucks this season, with pretty much the entire world predicting they’ll finish in last place.

But there’s no reason they can’t be enjoyable to watch on their way to the basement.

That was one of the issues with the past couple of seasons. Yes, the Canucks lost a lot of games, but they were also miserable to watch the entire time they were losing.

If Tuesday’s season opener against the Edmonton Oilers was any indication, the Canucks under new head coach Manny Malhotra are not going to be miserable to watch.

The Canucks piled up six goals on the supposed Cup Contenders, spoiling Mike Babcock’s debut as head coach. And it wasn’t just that they scored six goals, but that they scored entertaining goals.

Four of the Canucks’ six goals were scored off the rush, as they attacked with speed in transition in a way that Canucks fans haven’t seen in years. There were dekes on breakaways, laser-precise wristshots, and sublime playmaking on the power play.

It was just plain fun.

If the Canucks can play like that this season, losing will be a lot easier to swallow. Of course, on Tuesday night, they didn’t lose.

If you ask the Canucks themselves, they’re hoping for more than fun this season. Because of course they are. They’re hockey players. Rebuilding is for management. Players play. And players play to win.

“The idea of things in our room versus probably the rest of the world is a lot different,” said Paul Cotter, who scored two goals. “I think it’s better to be an underdog than it is middle of the pack.”

“This is a special group,” he continued. “Very, very ego-less, which is so rare — impossible. Older guys, younger guys, we all fit together and mesh well. That, ultimately, is going to take us pretty far along the way if you have a team like that.”

It took them to an overtime win when I watched this game.

  • The Oilers carried the play in the first period, but the Canucks counter-attacked like Leicester City, playing the long ball for some quality chances against the flow of play. Brock Boeser sprung Liam Ă–hgren down the left wing with a chip off the boards, and the young Swede barely missed opening the scoring, as his shot deflected off the butt end of Tristan Jarry’s stick.
  • The Canucks opened the scoring on another counterattack, this time while shorthanded. Kevin Lankinen read a cross-seam pass to Leon Draisaitl like it was A Game of Thrones, and punched away the German’s shot with his blocker. That sent Paul Cotter the other way on a 2-on-1 with Arshdeep Bains, and Cotter launched the puck over Tristan Jarry’s glove for his first goal as a Canuck.

  • One of the most intriguing aspects of Malhotra’s first game behind an NHL bench is that he hard-matched his third line of Drew O’Connor, Max Sasson, and Linus Karlsson against Connor McDavid. What’s better is that it kind of worked. When Sasson and McDavid were on the ice together at 5-on-5, the Canucks and Oilers tied 1-1.
  • “It definitely helps to be able to match that speed and be on top of him as much as possible, to limit his opportunities to transition and use his speed the way he does,” said Malhotra on Sasson’s play against McDavid. “That’s a huge part of Sasson’s game: his ability to get us up the ice and transport pucks, but also defensively, he can get to places quickly.”
  • The Oilers got one back with their 11th shot on Lankinen. Zach Hyman got in Lankinen’s face like he was Poochie, preventing him from seeing Evan Bouchard’s point shot, which was pretty much perfect, pinging off the post and in.

  • The pairing of Jamie Oleksiak and Tom Willander got eaten alive. They were primarily matched up against the Draisaitl line, which is a very tall task, but pretty much every Oilers line handed them their lunch. When Oleksiak was on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks were out-attempted 30-to-7, out-shot 15-to-2, and outscored 3-to-0.
  • But hockey is a funny sport. As much as Oleksiak struggled overall, he made two huge plays that helped earn the Canucks the win. Early in the second, he came up with a glove save that would have made Dominik Hasek proud, taking away a sure goal from Vasily Podkolzin.

  • A minute later, Liam Ă–hgren found Marco Rossi flying through the neutral zone for a breakaway. Rossi, like a gamer who has only sunk 70 hours into Skyrim, was a filthy casual: his move looked so relaxed and calm, while simultaneously super slick as he flipped the puck under Jarry’s blocker.

  • Bouchard scored again to tie the game, taking advantage of McDavid’s gravity. The star drew in Karlsson like a passing asteroid, leaving Bouchard open in the slot. Tom Willander backed in to deep to take the shot away, and O’Connor was too late getting back.

  • That sent the game into the second intermission tied at two. Then things went off the rails for the Oilers like a party that’s run out of cocaine.
  • Oleksiak made his second big play of the game, jumping on a loose puck after Kasperi Kapanen misplayed a pass, and chipping the puck up to Jake DeBrusk, who sent Jonathan Lekkerimäki speeding up the right wing. Instead of trying to snipe the top corner, Lekkerimäki sent a craftier shot along the ice, what we would call a worm-burner in golf. The puck had too much pace for Jarry to stop.

  • Less than two minutes later, Sasson doubled the lead. Sasson played a give-and-go with O’Connor, and when Sasson goes, he really goes. He accelerated right past Podkolzin, took O’Connor’s return feed for an impromptu breakaway, and tucked the puck five-hole on Jarry.
  • The most important part of the goal came a moment earlier, however, when Zeev Buium kept pace with McDavid on a zone entry, maintaining a perfect gap and forcing him to the wall, allowing O’Connor to double-team the Oilers’ captain and create a turnover. Buium didn’t get an assist, but his textbook defence on McDavid deserved one.

  • Like Rivers Cuomo’s sweater, the Oilers continued to unravel, with a Mathieu Joseph high stick putting the Canucks on the power play. Elias Pettersson scored with the man advantage, which was his first power play goal on the road in 84 games. For the Canucks fans in the building, it must have been like being a marine biologist seeing a coelacanth that had been thought to be extinct for 66 million years.
  • Like a properly prepared Corona, Pettersson’s goal was sublime. Pettersson set up in the bumper — an unusual spot for him — like he was about to shoot, which sucked in two penalty killers. Instead of forcing the shot, Pettersson just lightly redirected the puck to Filip Hronek at the point, then got open for a tip. Hronek’s shot-pass was right on the tape for the redirection.

  • “I always try to give Fil a blade to shoot at,” said Pettersson. “He shot, and the puck was in the net. I didn’t have time to react to it. He made that play, it was all him.”
  • Prime Minister Mark Carney was at the game. Edmonton fans might have wished that the one-time goaltender for Harvard University was in the Oilers’ net instead of Jarry, who received a Bronx cheer from the crowd after a routine save a minute after Pettersson’s goal.
  • In case anyone was confused, this is still the Canucks, and no one gives up a three-goal lead better than the Canucks. It’s a great source of pride.
  • First, Podkolzin scored on the doorstep after Rossi failed to get a clear. Rossi was far too casual without the filthy this time, softly backhanding the puck toward the blue line. The puck was picked off and passed around until Bouchard set up Podkolzin, who held off Brock Boeser to jam the puck in.

  • This was a heck of a game for Bouchard, who tallied his third goal and fourth point of the night less than a minute later when his shot through traffic went bar down. Lankinen never saw it coming.
  • The hat trick goal, however, meant flying hats, which can be dangerous. Bouchard lost some aura when one hat smacked him square in the face.

  • Lankinen may have been beaten five times, but he still had a sharp game and came up with an early save-of-the-year candidate late in the third period. Draisaitl tried a sneaky one-timer from a tight angle that went off the post and hit Lankinen in the back. As the puck tumbled towards the goal line, the Finn twisted around and swatted the puck away with a backhanded slap.

  • The Canucks were desperately trying to hang onto the lead and did well to maintain possession on a delayed penalty to eat time off the clock. But then they were taken off the power play by the first of what will likely be many terrible calls this season.
  • Mattias Ekholm wrapped his arms around Karlsson and all-but tackled him to the ice, simultaneously breaking his own stick on the boards. When Karlsson took a one-handed swipe at Ekholm’s stick, it snapped where it had already been broken, and the referee’s arm shot up in the air.

  • The Oilers pulled Jarry to go 6-on-4, and Bouchard made it a five-point night with a secondary assist. Oleksiak overplayed Draisaitl along the boards, while Hronek got caught puck-watching. When Draisaitl hit Podkolzin with a cross-ice pass, the former Canuck had spacious acreage to build a lovely farmhouse, as well as walk in and pick his spot on Lankinen.

  • “We don’t want to give up three in the third period,” said Malhotra. “That’s something we’ll definitely need to work on. But just the resiliency to stay with it, for us, was a huge factor in the game.”
  • Malhotra showed a lot of confidence in a couple of depth players in overtime, sending Sasson and Cotter over the boards. Given their speed, it was an understandable combination, though it wasn’t their speed that won the Canucks the game.
  • Cotter was a dog on a bone on the forecheck, hounding Ryan Shea like he was a humerus. Cotter got his body between Shea and the puck, and slid the biscuit free to Sasson from his belly. Sasson sent a lovely backhand pass back to Cotter after he scrambled back to his feet, and the newly-minted Canuck neatly deked to the backhand to beat Jarry.

  • “Couldn’t have drawn it up better than that,” said Cotter to Sportsnet’s Gene Principe. “It’s a dream come true to start the year, individually and obviously for us, to beat a team of that calibre. I don’t know if I could think of a better way to start the season.”
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