McDrai dominates as Oilers down Canucks: Recap, Highlights, and Reaction

The Oilers extended their lead to two midway through the first, as McDavid’s original shot was saved, but Trent Frederic was right there to bang in the rebound for his first of the pre-season.

Their lead reached three with three minutes left in the second. After a faceoff win on the power play, the puck found its way to Leon Draisaitl from his spot, with the German burying it to make it 3-0.

The Canucks made a game of it, scoring two goals in 43 seconds to cut the Oilers’ lead to one. Thankfully, the game-winning goal was scored midway through the third period, as McDavid and Draisaitl earned a two-on-one. After waiting out the Canucks’ defender, McDavid was able to pass it on his back to Draisaitl, who tapped it in.

With the net open, the Canucks got to within one, but were unable to find the game-tying goal as the Oilers held on for a 4-3 victory.

Takeaways…

In their last game, both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl finished with a -3. This game saw Draisaitl score twice and pick up two assists, while McDavid had a goal and two assists. That said, they need to tighten up defensively, as they had numerous defensive turnovers leading to high-danger scoring chances for the Canucks. This also extended to Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm.

Trent Frederic played alongside McDavid and Draisaitl, and he had a solid performance. Especially in the first period, as he scored a goal and got an assist. Frederic is there to win them the puck, and he did just that in the second period, as he forced a turnover that led to one of many two-on-ones for McDavid and Draisaitl.

Ike Howard had a pretty rough game, finishing as a -2 in just under 15 minutes of action. He played alongside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Andrew Mangiapane, a line that we could see at some point in 2025-26.

It was a pretty quiet night by all the other forwards. Quinn Hutson, Kasperi Kapanen, Noah Philp, Josh Samanski, and David Tomášek find the same success that all of them had in recent games.

A few defencemen stood out, surprisingly, Atro Leppänen was not one of them. His defence partner, Alec Regula, had a strong game. As did Cam Dineen, a player acquired in the Nick Bjugstad trade back in 2023.

Stuart Skinner stopped 25 of 28 shots in the victory. The first goal came on a screen, the second on a net front deflection, and the third on a one-timer courtesy of a great pass. It would’ve been nice to see him save one of those shots, but he did enough for the victory.

There are just two more pre-season games on the docket. The next one is on Wednesday at 8:00 PM MT against the Seattle Kraken in Washington. As for the other one, the Canucks and Oilers will match up again next Friday at 8:00 PM MT.