VANCOUVER – Connor McDavid had a goal and four assists as the Edmonton Oilers held on for a wild 9-7 win over the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday night, splitting the season-opening home-and-home series between the two teams, according to NHL.com.
Leon Draisaitl had two goals and an assist, and Evan Bouchard added a goal and two assists. Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin each had a goal and an assist, while Owen Michaels, Ryan Shea and Trent Frederic also scored for Edmonton (1-0-1), per NHL.com’s game summary.
Devon Levi made 15 saves in his Oilers regular-season debut. The goalie was acquired from the Buffalo Sabres on July 1.
For Vancouver (1-1-0), Marco Rossi scored twice and added an assist, Elias Pettersson had a goal and two assists, and Brock Boeser, Paul Cotter, Arshdeep Bains and Jamie Oleksiak each scored once. Canucks starter Kevin Lankinen was pulled in the second period after the Oilers piled up goals, and Leevi Merilainen came on in relief for his debut.
McDavid and Kapanen scored short-handed goals 34 seconds apart, NHL.com reported, one of the swings in a game that saw 16 goals in total.
Series split
The Oilers lost Tuesday’s opener 6-5 in overtime at Rogers Place, where Cotter scored 1:59 into the extra period despite a hat trick from Bouchard. Thursday’s result evens the two-game set and gives Edmonton its first win of the 2026-27 season.
The Oilers played without Zach Hyman, who is out with an upper-body injury, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who is on injured reserve. Edmonton recalled forward Josh Samanski ahead of the rematch.
Edmonton had been scored on freely in the opener and again here, a point NHL.com’s coverage noted in postgame comments from the Oilers. Details of those remarks were not independently confirmed for this report.
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Source: NHL.com game recap, Oct. 1, 2026. Photo: Connor McDavid in a 2022 archive photo by All-Pro Reels (Brian Murphy), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Not from this game.
