Down 8-2 in your own building on home-opener night and climbing back to 9-7 really happened, and it's fair to feel something about it. But on the standings page, it means less than what the team that actually won did.
A win is a win. Edmonton scored nine goals on the road in a building that was screaming for them to collapse, and they didn't. Connor McDavid had a five-point night. Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard each had four. Owen Michaels scored his first NHL goal. That's a team that can simply outscore you when it wants to, and pretending the Oilers' quality is somehow in question because Vancouver made it interesting in the third period gets the story backwards.
Edmonton's new goaltender, Devon Levi, making his first NHL start in over a year and his Oilers debut, should worry fans more than the final score does. He allowed seven goals on 22 shots and played all sixty minutes; his coach never pulled him. Mike Babcock said after the game that his team knows it can be way better, which is him being diplomatic about it. A team that needs McDavid at five points just to survive its own goaltender hasn't fixed anything. It's just winning ugly. The same problem showed up two nights earlier when Edmonton allowed six in an overtime loss. Two games, thirteen goals against, same hole in the net.
Vancouver's goaltending was worse by the numbers. Kevin Lankinen got pulled after allowing eight goals on 20 shots, and a goalie claimed off waivers days earlier had to come in and finish the game. Nobody on either bench earns credit for goaltending after a night like that.
What Vancouver gets to keep is Elias Pettersson. A goal, two assists, and strong underlying numbers at five-on-five, that's the one piece of Thursday that should survive the week. It matters more for the Canucks' season than a gutsy third period does. Third-period sprints against a team already up six don't repeat on command, but a $69.6 million center playing like himself does.
The comeback does say something about character. Clawing back from six down against a team that just beat you in overtime two nights earlier takes something. But the question here is who's actually good, and on that the math isn't close. Edmonton has three points through two games, a player having a dominant stretch, and a goaltending problem it has to solve before a real defense makes it pay for it. Vancouver has a highlight reel and a loss.
Stop handing out moral victories to a team that didn't finish what it started. Vancouver didn't win anything Thursday night except the right to feel better about a loss than it should.
