The Vancouver Canucks set a commanding tone to start the season against an Edmonton Oilers team their coach said was stuck in pre-season mode.

Every year since he joined the NHL, Quinn Hughes has started his NHL regular season by facing the Edmonton Oilers. A standing date against the best player in the world is not exactly a walk in the park for a young defenseman.

"It's always a war," the Canucks' new captain said. "They were itching to go today. They were ready to go, and we were just playing really good hockey."

As a reminder, here's how those four previous matchups turned out.

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Last year was a particular kick in the teeth. In Edmonton, the Canucks got out to a 3-0 lead by the early stages of the second period before the Oilers started chipping away and earned the comeback win. That set off a downward spiral of bad luck and blown leads that snowballed into an 0-5-2 start for Vancouver, which didn't win its first game until Oct. 27. 

That record had slipped to 18-25-3 when Bruce Boudreau was fired on Jan. 22, 2023 — right after a 4-2 home loss to Edmonton.

On Wednesday night, the Canucks' attempt to reposition themselves as playoff contenders in the Pacific Division couldn't have gone any better. Brock Boeser led the way with his first-career four-goal game while J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson each had a goal and three assists as the Canucks trounced the Stanley Cup-seeking Edmonton Oilers by a score of 8-1 — their biggest opening-night margin of victory in franchise history.

Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua also scored for Vancouver. 

Edmonton's lone goal came off the stick of Leon Draisaitl, from down low on a second-period power play, with assists to Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard.

But that was all she wrote. After setting an all-time NHL record with 32.7 percent power-play efficiency last season, the Oilers start off at 25 percent this year, 1-for-4 on the night. 

Meanwhile, Vancouver went 3-for-6. That 50 percent efficiency ties them with the Toronto Maple Leafs (2-for-4) for the early league lead with the man advantage.

And while the Canucks' opening-night penalty-kill rate of 75 percent isn't much better than the 71.6 percent rate that left them dead last in the league last season, they'll happily take that result against McDavid and company — especially because they didn't allow a shot on an early puck-over-glass penalty against Tyler Myers, 5:02 into the first period. 

After just one practice with his new team, Sam Lafferty was thrown out to take the defensive-zone draw against Draisaitl — paired with Miller as the second forward in the shorthanded situation.

"He's kind of a bull — he's a lot to handle," said Miller of the 28-year-old, who also hails from just outside of Pittsburgh. "It's kind of a hard game to get thrown into the mix on the P.K. against them, right? But he looked good tonight."

Barely a minute after that first penalty kill was complete, the Canucks reversed the flow of play as Garland worked a give-and-go with Pettersson.

With that early momentum on Vancouver's side, there was no looking back.

"It's nice to get off on the right foot after what happened last year," Miller said.

At 5-on-5, Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet addressed McDavid with a five-man unit — Miller, Boeser and Phil Di Giuseppe up front, with Hughes and Filip Hronek on the back end. The matchup paid off in spades: three goals for Boeser at even strength and nothing for the NHL's reigning scoring champion.

"The bottom line is, we were at a pre-season level of work ethic and a pre-season level of execution, all of us," said Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. "We got a lesson in regular-season work ethic and regular-season battle level."

And while both teams were playing with pared-down rosters, the Oilers seemed to feel it more — especially with the ongoing absence of injured Mattias Ekholm after he did such an impressive job of stabilizing Edmonton's back end after his trade-deadline acquisition last year.

For salary-cap reasons, both sides iced 17-skater rosters made up of 11 forwards and six defensemen. And while Jack Campbell was pulled as Woodcroft attempted to change momentum after the Edmonton starter surrendered four goals on 16 shots through 27:30, Stuart Skinner suffered a nearly identical fate: four goals on 16 shots through the remaining 32:30. 

Edmonton forward Dylan Holloway also left the game midway through the third period after blocking a pair of shots on the penalty kill. 

The Canucks also used both their goalies, but under somewhat different circumstances. Thatcher Demko left the game just before that third-period power play began, after stopping 21 of 22 shots. Making his Canucks debut, Casey DeSmith stepped in to make five saves the rest of the way. 

Tocchet confirmed after the game that Demko had been suffering from dehydration, as the flu has been going around the Canucks' dressing room.

One day after reports surfaced that Garland's new agent, Judd Moldaver, has been granted permission to seek a possible trade, the 27-year-old didn't see the ice after the 5:33 mark of the third period. Miller and Hughes were also held out for the last 10 minutes or so, but they didn't seem to be worse for wear when they spoke to the media after the game. Both are expected to play big minutes in key roles this season.

"We started losing some bodies at the end," said Tocchet, once again referencing the flu and dehydration. "I thought the guys managed the game. That's something we've been talking about."

With 17 teams having played their first games of the year through Wednesday, Vancouver's players will sit first overall in the NHL standings as they enjoy a team day off on Thursday, thanks to a league-leading eight goals for and plus-7 goal differential. No team has recorded a shutout yet, either, so the Canucks' one goal against has them tied with last year's Presidents' Trophy winners in Boston and the Stanley Cup champs in Vegas as they come out of the gate.

Lofty company. And while it's just as fun to fantasize about Boeser's 328-goal pace as it was when Auston Matthews made his dazzling NHL debut, Vancouver's players are aware there's a long road ahead — including a rematch on Saturday in Edmonton, where the humbled Oilers will be looking to change the narrative around their team with both the last change and the home crowd on their side.

"There's a lot of times they're gonna get the better of you, but it feels good tonight," Miller summarized. "But I keep going back to: We want to be an even-keel group and a day-by-day group. So enjoy today, and then move on."