Mike Babcock didn’t spend much time sugarcoating Edmonton’s opener.
After the Oilers let the Vancouver Canucks seize control in the second period, the head coach pointed straight at the team’s own standard - or lack of it - after a night that left goaltender Tristan Jarry scrambling for help.
“Our part is to play way better. That was ridiculous,” Babcock said. “If we want to play like that, we’re going to be chasing the game.”
The conversation quickly turned to whether this was the same old problem in Edmonton: enough offense to survive, but too much sloppiness to control games. When one reporter started with, “We’ve seen this before…”, Babcock cut in with, “I haven’t,” before the question was finished.
The reporter then pressed on, asking, “That’s what I was going to say. …”Does changing the way this team plays and the structure this team has to play is going to be a little more difficult than maybe you first thought?”
Babcock didn’t buy the idea that the job had caught him off guard.
“I don’t think so,” said Babcock. “I don’t think I thought for one second it was going to be easy. But tonight was an indication we have serious work to do.”
He said the staff would go back over the game the next day, show the players where things broke down, and straighten it out. The message was clear: the start was acceptable, but the drift away from the plan was not.
“We started fine. But playing like that and getting away from what we’re supposed to do is unacceptable for us. So we’ve got set a better standard for ourselves.”
There was at least one huge bright spot for Edmonton: Evan Bouchard put on a show.
The defenseman finished with five points and a hat trick in the overtime loss, peppering shots all night and benefiting from traffic in front that made it difficult for Kevin Lankinen to track the puck. The performance made history, too. It was the first hat trick by a defenseman on opening night since 1980, and Bouchard became the first defenseman in NHL history to post a five-point game in a season opener.
Bouchard’s night was big enough to stand out on its own, and it gave Edmonton a personal jolt even if it didn’t produce the win. The Oilers had to settle for one point, and Babcock wasn’t interested in dressing that up.
“To be honest with you, we’re fortunate to get a point. Great comeback, but in the end, we still gave up three chances in overtime in a minute-and-a-half.”
In Other News...
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Edmonton will be without Zach Hyman and will turn to Devon Levi in net, giving this rematch a slightly different feel even before the puck drops. The game will air on Sportsnet Pacific, with Pierre Lambert and Michael Markovic scheduled to referee, but for Vancouver the bigger question is whether the same formula that worked once can hold up again in front of a home crowd now expecting a stronger start. [Read more 🡒]
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For skaters, assists can be awarded in a fairly straightforward chain of events, but goaltenders live under a different standard. In this case, the league did not agree with Vancouvers request, holding to the line that a goalie has to intend to pass the puck to receive an assist. It leaves the Canucks with an interesting edge-case to file away, and it also raises the broader question of whether the NHLs scoring rules ought to make a little more room for the way goaltenders actually help create offense. [Read more 🡒]
Former Canucks Defender Gets Another Chance After Rough Ending
Derek Forbort is getting another look in professional hockey after a difficult run with Vancouver, where the veteran defenceman spent parts of the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons working through injuries while still helping steady the penalty kill. The former Canucks blueliner has since moved on from that stretch and is trying to keep his career rolling after stops with several NHL teams since the Los Angeles Kings drafted him in 2010.
Now 34, Forbort is on a new path in the American Hockey League, where he will try to prove he still has something left to offer. For a player whose value has long come from defensive reliability and special-teams work, the next challenge is clear enough: show he can stay available and effective, then see whether the door back to the NHL opens again. [Read more 🡒]