The Edmonton Oilers opened the 2025–26 season last night against the Calgary Flames. The main objective for Edmonton this season was to not get destroyed like they have in season openers past. Especially with a home opener on their home city’s birthday against their hated rival, a solid performance was imperative.
Fortunately, the Oilers started on time this year, tallying more goals in the first period than the last two season openers combined. Unfortunately, after they got up 3–0, a series of bad bounces and a careless mistake leveled the score. This is the Edmonton Oilers, a team that almost always insists on doing things the harder way. The harder way was in effect again tonight.
At least this season, they start off with a standings point. At least, there’s no goalie pull in Game 1, no Charlie Brown-esque whiff in trying to kick the football. They just simply nudged the football forward three feet with the side of their foot. Here’s the first game breakdown of the 2025–26 campaign.
Newcomers made an immediate impact on this night
The Edmonton starting lineup this season looked a lot different than it did to wrap up 2024–25. Several new faces, from free-agent signings to NHL rookies, came into this game having something to prove. And several of them had a huge impact on this game.
Chief among them was Andrew Mangiapane, who wasted little time scoring against his former team. If he does this three more times this year, that’s a worthy signing achieved by General Manager Stan Bowman. Keep the word “signing” in mind, we’ll get to that again in a moment.
David Tomasek also looked pretty solid in his debut. He notched a beauty of an assist on Leon Draisaitl’s 3–0 goal, with a sublime backhand feed on the power play to #29. First NHL point on Draisaitl’s milestone tally—who gets the puck? Do they slice it in half?
Isaac “Ike” Howard also had some decent looks, and nearly had his first NHL goal late in the game. His drag move, however, didn’t pan out the way he wanted it to, nullifying the chance. There’s legitimate talent there- it’s just going to take a bit of refining.
A random mid-game Roslovic signing appears
Forward Jack Roslovic came off a 20-goal season with Carolina last year looking for a new contract. The Oilers offered him one this past offseason, and his response was to not only decline it, but fire his agent. Because the rational answer in hockey when anything goes awry, it appears, is to throw a coach, or a GM, or an agent under the bus.
Somewhere along the line, with nothing arising as the calendar flipped to October, Roslovic re-thought his decisions. And so, we got something that this observer, a fan of hockey since 1999, can’t recall ever happening before: a free-agent signing midway through game one of the regular season. Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman waited a while last year, too. But he was a restricted free-agent, and signed before the season commenced.
Solid play for first 30 minutes, then plagued by bad luck and errors
The Oilers defence actually looked very solid in the first 30 minutes of this game. The Flames were limited to four shots in the opening period, and zero goals in that first half of game action. And by definition, the defence had a decent night as a whole.
The game of hockey can be unforgiving, though. Calgary got two back before intermission via Noah Philp deflecting a puck into his own net, and a power play tally for the Flames that may or may not have been high-sticked in. In either event, neither goal was of the traditional variety.
If it were just those two goals allowed, it would be hard to fault Stuart Skinner on either, especially the Philp own-goal. The tying goal forty seconds into the third period, however? Just fall on that darn biscuit. Swallow it, but that cannot be left there for Blake Coleman to poke home.
Skinner needed a strong start to this season to achieve his personal ambitions. At the very least, he didn’t get pulled, and didn’t give up anything else. But plays like that have to be eliminated from his game going forward, full stop.
Draisaitl’s 400th goal, Nuge’s 50th three-point game
As mentioned earlier, Draisaitl’s tally was a milestone. He needed less than half a game to pot his 400th career NHL goal. And of course, he did it with a power play one timer from his favourite area of the ice.
Aside from Connor McDavid’s standard multi-point outing, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was the other stellar performer in this contest. He had the first goal of the new year, and two assists to go along with it. Nugent-Hopkins battled through a rough start to 2024–25, so a good start for him was needed. He delivered and then some on this night.
Rumours about his downfall from certain other publications may have been a tad exaggerated. If he even maintains a third of this 246-point pace he’s on, it will be a successful bounce-back campaign.
Whats next for the Oilers
Last night was a nationally-televised game against a divisional rival. So will the next one. Oilers will host the Vancouver Canucks as part of the opening to another season of Hockey Night In Canada, on Saturday. Canucks, for what it’s worth, play the Flames tomorrow night, so they’ll have slightly less rest.
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