EDMONTON – It hasn’t felt prefer it at instances, however the Edmonton Oilers are off to their finest begin within the final three years.
Edmonton received a wild one on Thursday as Vasily Podkolzin scored the sport winner with simply over a minute remaining and added an help because the Oilers mounted a third-period comeback to defeat the Montreal Canadiens 6-5.
David Tomasek, Adam Henrique, Andrew Mangiapane, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins additionally scored for the Oilers (4-3-1) who’ve received two in a row.
In contrast, via their first eight video games of 2023, the Oilers had been 2-5-1, and in 2024 they had been 3-4-1. Each seasons ended with journeys to the Stanley Cup remaining.
“We’re sitting right here at 4-3-1, there have been some seasons with quite a bit harder trekking from recreation eight,” stated Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse, who picked up a pair of assists Thursday.
“With that stated, I feel our group is aware of we’ve got to be quite a bit higher. We got here with an emphasis in camp and the beginning of the 12 months that we need to have a superb begin. Fortuitously, we’re ready right here the place we do have a successful report right here and we will construct on it. It’s grabbing it now as a bunch.”
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The Oilers appeared lucky to achieve the win over the Habs.
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Regardless of seemingly being outplayed, Edmonton grabbed a 3-1 lead halfway via the second interval.
The lacklustre play caught up with the Oilers late within the second as Montreal got here storming again with three targets in lower than two minutes to knot it up, together with a pair by Cole Caufield.
Montreal took a 5-3 lead earlier than Edmonton mounted their very own fast comeback, scoring a pair of energy play markers in a span of 58 seconds simply previous the halfway mark of the third.
Podkolzin then performed hero, sending a backhanded shot in whereas falling to his knees for his first purpose of the season with simply 1:09 remaining on the sport clock.
“We’ve been there one million instances, and the blokes have been there one million instances,” Podkolzin stated. “Down by two for the Oilers is nothing, I suppose. And the blokes have proved it one million instances. It wasn’t an ideal feeling, we didn’t play nicely defensively and we’ve bought to play a lot better as a high crew. However discovering a method to get two factors was good.”
Edmonton’s second power-play purpose got here on an unsportsmanlike conduct name to Josh Anderson proper after Draisaitl scored on the person benefit. Temperatures had been excessive within the Montreal dressing room concerning the name.
“I’m nonetheless attempting to determine that out,” Caufield stated. “I feel the refs sort of took over the sport there and kudos to them for successful it.”
Regardless of the victory, the Oilers know they nonetheless have loads of work to do.
“It simply wasn’t ok,” stated Nugent-Hopkins. “We took benefit of some energy performs on the finish that we scored on, after which a extremely massive one there by Podz. It was a superb battle. I believed we began to push on the finish, however I’d say for many of the recreation it was not our customary.”
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch echoed the sentiment.
“Perhaps the final 10 minutes of the sport, it regarded like we had been a crew,” he stated. “We performed nicely. However the first 50 it was disorganized, it was a scarcity of labor. It didn’t look superb.
“We’ve bought loads of issues to scrub up. We are able to solely get higher proper now.”
Oilers captain Connor McDavid picked up three assists within the contest and Tomasek recorded his first profession NHL purpose in his seventh recreation.
The 29-year-old native of Prague beforehand performed for Farjestads BK Karlstad within the Swedish Elite League, and led that league in factors with 57 in 47 video games final season.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Oct. 23, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
