McDavid’s hat-trick caps Oilers’ comeback win over Canucks | CBC sport

After a slow start to the regular season opener, Edmonton finally found their way by orchestrating a huge comeback to win.

Connor McDavid notched a hat-trick and added an assist as the Oilers clinched a 5-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday from a 3-0 deficit.

“It just wasn’t a good start for our group. It was the first game and maybe there was a bit of nervousness,” said McDavid. “It’s not going to be perfect every night. You won’t have the game you want every night and sometimes you win with your ‘B’ or ‘C’ game. It certainly wasn’t our ‘A’ game to start, but we found a way to get our legs going and get back into it.”

Leon Draisaitl had a goal and two assists while Darnell Nurse also scored for the Oilers (1-0). Goalkeeper Jack Campbell made 33 saves in the win.

“It certainly wasn’t to anyone’s script,” said Edmonton head coach Jay Woodcroft. “I don’t think we were sharp. I don’t think we were in sync early on. We found a way to win the game, that’s a really good sign but we can be better.”

CLOCK | McDavid scores hat trick:

Elias Pettersson, JT Miller and Andrei Kuzmenko all scored for the Canucks (0-1). Thatcher Demko stopped 20 of 24 shots he faced in the loss.

“It was pretty disappointing. I thought we did pretty well in the first round and special teams kind of cost us the game,” said Canuck defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. “The power play wasn’t good enough and we couldn’t keep the puck out of our net on the (penalty).”

Edmonton appeared to have a bad case of nerves to start the contest and the Canucks took advantage and went up 2-0 in less than three minutes early.

Just 1:49 into the opening period, Oilers rookie forward Dylan Holloway coughed the puck up to Pettersson, who had a clear path to the net and was able to fish his own rebound out of Campbell’s feet and save him for a goal Hatch.

Fifty-one seconds later, Miller scooped the top corner with a ball past Campbell to double the lead.

Vancouver made it 3-0 in the majority game just 39 seconds into the middle period when Miller played a perfect pass to give Kuzmenko a backdoor tap-in for his first goal of his NHL debut. Kuzmenko is the first player in Canucks history to score a power play goal on his debut.

Edmonton came on the board at 4:12 in the second frame when Draisaitl took a deflected pass off the side of the net and smashed it past Demko on a power play. The goal was controversial, however, when Evander Kane caught Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes in the face with a high stick, which was not announced, although Hughes bled just before the goal.

“He’s fine. They missed it, it’s happening,” Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “The game is quite fast, unfortunately they miss the game, it ends up in the back of our net and gives them a bit of life.”

The Oilers moved 14-01 into the second on goal with another power play marker when a perfect three-way passing play carried the puck from Zach Hyman to Draisaitl and then to McDavid for his first win of the season.

Edmonton dramatically pulled to a two-for-one shorthanded break with 41 seconds left in the period when Draisaitl passed it to Nurse, who defeated Demko by a one-timer.

The Oilers went 15-01 into the third half when McDavid orchestrated a surrender and walk with Hyman before popping his own rebound past Demko. It was McDavid’s 700th career point and became the sixth fastest player to hit the bull’s eye, using just 488 games.

McDavid completed the hat-trick with 25 seconds left when Kane threw it back at him for an empty-net power play goal, triggering a barrage of hats thrown onto the ice. It was his eleventh career hat-trick.