As the Oilers' Frustrations Mounted Vs. Canucks, When Does Something Have to Give?

The Vancouver Canucks won their fourth straight game. Quinn Hughes posted a goal and three assists for his fifth multi-point game of the year. Elias Pettersson moved into first place in the NHL scoring race. And Brock Boeser followed up his four-goal performance against the Edmonton Oilers on opening night with a two-goal effort that got him to 10 for the year — and made him the second scorer in the league to hit double digits this season, after Auston Matthews.

But the big story of the night at Rogers Arena on Monday was the Edmonton Oilers' inability to maintain the relentless pressure they displayed when they came out of their dressing room for the opening puck drop with guns a-blazin'.

In the end, the Oilers dropped their third game of the year to the Canucks in this young season, this time by a score of 6-2. As their record drops to 2-8-1, their goal differential of minus-18, their 4.27 goals against per game and their 68.9 percent penalty kill are all second-worst in the league — ahead of only the hapless San Jose Sharks.

Emotions started to run high in the third period. About five minutes in, Zach Hyman briefly dropped the gloves with J.T. Miller while defending Connor McDavid.

Less than a minute later, McDavid took a roughing penalty on Pius Suter, then Leon Draisaitl was simultaneously sentenced to a 10-minute misconduct.

For his part in the unravelling, McDavid pled innocence.

"Not frustration at all," he said after the game. "The guy turns into me and I keep going, and they call the penalty."

When Miller got out of the box with the Canucks still on the power play, he hammered home a revenge blast that was in and out of the net so fast that play continued and had to be stopped by off-ice officials to signal the 5-2 goal.

If you're superstitious, you might want to make something out of the fact that it was 13:13 of the third when the officials abruptly stopped play to issue an unsportsmanlike penalty and game misconduct to Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft.

When it was his turn to speak to the media, Woodcroft also insisted that the punishment didn't fit the crime.

"I asked about the play on (Dylan) Holloway," he said, referencing what he thought was a trip in front of the Vancouver net. "It wasn't profanity-laced or anything like that. It was a question. 

"It wasn't well received when I asked the question and in the end, I've got to be better. I can't take a penalty to put our team down. But I didn't think it crossed the line at all."

The Oilers killed that one for their coach. But when Darnell Nurse was sent to the box for removing Hoglander's helmet with 1:40 left in regulation, that gave the Canucks one final chance to send out their top power-play unit and get Boeser that 10th goal with the assists to Pettersson, his only point of the night, and Hughes, his fourth.

Yes, Boeser's two goals on Monday match the number of goals that McDavid has scored all year. 

And after enduring that embarrassing 8-1 loss in Vancouver on opening night, when Boeser scored four times, the Oilers started out with so much promise on Monday.

They outshot the Canucks 9-0 in the first 2:28 of the game, then took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Mattias Ekholm. By the second TV timeout of the game, midway through the period, the shots were up to 19-2 for Edmonton, sending an exhausted-looking Thatcher Demko to the Vancouver bench to towel off while the ice crews performed their duties.

But just 43 seconds after the game resumed, the momentum did a 180 when an own goal beat Stuart Skinner off the stick of defenseman Vincent Desharnais. The NHL's reigning first star of the week, Hughes, was credited with the equalizer. 

In the next 3:32, the Canucks built their lead to 3-1 off a rush goal by Suter, who has now amassed a three-game scoring streak, and Boeser's first power-play tally with 5:08 left to play in the first. 

While the Canucks scored three goals on four shots on Skinner, the Oilers didn't get a single shot on goal. They only managed one more shot in the rest of the first and started the second shorthanded after Ekholm was whistled for interfering with Nils Hoglander in front of the Edmonton net as the first period wound down.

"I think the last two-three games, we've had great starts," said Ekholm after the game. "And for some reason, we find ourselves in a deficit going into the intermission, and it's frustrating.

"I don't know if you can play a better first 15 minutes of that period. I looked at the shot clock after 14 minutes — it's like 18 shots or something, and we're humming. And then it just seems to be a break here, a break there and a break there. And then it's 1-3."

Last season, Skinner was able to steady the ship when Jack Campbell sputtered out of the gate in the first year of his five-year, $25-million free-agent contract. 

This year, neither stopper is delivering the timely saves. Skinner has seen a little more action and sits at a 3.99 goals-against average and .856 save percentage. Campbell is at 4.27 and .873. Both goalies have one win and four losses so far, and Skinner also has an overtime loss on his record.

At the other end of the ice on Monday, Demko held his teammates in the game until the skaters got going and finished with 40 saves.

"Demmer is like a smelling salt," said Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet after the game. "We woke up after he made six or seven unreal saves. The guys were really mad at themselves for not being ready. They obviously found their legs and we played really well after that."

Now riding a six-game personal winning streak where he has given up just seven goals and logged two shutouts, Demko's heavy workload on Monday bumped his save percentage for the year up to a heady .948. But his two goals allowed actually increased his GAA from 1.55 to 1.61.

A first-world problem for the Canucks, who are determined not to get too giddy about the good fortune that has rather unexpectedly engulfed a group that is, itself, used to facing frustration and disappointment at almost every turn.

Woodcroft refused to lay the blame for the Oilers' woes at the feet of his netminders. 

"Our goaltenders wear the same jerseys as the rest of the team," he said. "Is there moments that our goaltenders can be better? Yeah, there are. Is there moments that our team or individual players at different positions can be better? Yeah. 

"The nature of that position is that you're the last line. So if a mistake is made, it ends up in the net. If you're a forward and you make a mistake, it's usually away from the net. There's other people that can help cover."

For his part, Skinner didn't duck his role in yet another disappointing outcome.

"It's hard because these guys are working their bag off," he said. "They did such a good job, especially in the first period. We had, like, 18 shots after — I think — seven minutes. 

"It was pretty impressive and Demko obviously did a great job. But that's the guy who I gotta beat out. I gotta beat out the other goaltender, and I didn't do that tonight."

As the Good Ship Oiler continues to take on water, relief may lie ahead when the road trip continues Thursday in San Jose. Surely there will be an opportunity to get the win and build some confidence against an 0-10-1 Sharks team that is starting to look like it's setting new standards for futility — and that also has a game in the meantime, hosting the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night. 

It feels like an uncharacteristically crucial face-off between teams 31 and 32. Who could have imagined this is where the Oilers' season already seems to be hanging in the balance, not even a month after opening night?