A winning end to the meaningless games.

The Vancouver Canucks topped the Edmonton Oilers by a 3-2 overtime scoreline. With the final cuts to the roster looming, quite a few of the young guns gave strong closing auditions to crack the lineup. For some others, it probably showed that they weren’t ready for the spotlight yet. But preseason hockey is meant to show this in spades, to help make these tough decisions as clear as possible. Here are a couple standouts from last night.

As always, you can find our glossary guide of advanced stats here.

This was probably one of the rougher games for the two rookie defencemen. Paired up together, Elias Pettersson and Tom Willander struggled against the Oilers and showed a bit of their inexperience, rather than a lack of talent. There were more than a few chances that Edmonton got against them and it simply wasn’t a good look for the duo.

The numbers backed up the eye test in this one. Together, Pettersson-Willander only managed to put together 35.71 CF% and 35.88 xGF%, giving up 2 scoring chances in 7:33 TOI at 5v5, both of which were high-danger chances. This was coming despite pretty favourable deployment, with a large majority of their shift and faceoff starts coming in the offensive zone. While Pettersson has some good body of work to fall back on from last season and this preseason, Willander hasn’t earned that much. It’s apparent that he still needs to develop stronger confidence and decision-making skills to play in the show.

Seeing a healthy Thatcher Demko play goalie is always such a treat. With the Canucks looking more than a little dicey from time to time during this game, their netminder came up big to help hold the Oilers at bay pretty frequently. It’s a testament to having a full offseason to rehab and train for once, and the difference definitely seems to be showing thus far.

The only goals to get past Demko last night came from a middle danger chance and a low danger chance. Otherwise, the American was perfect from high-danger chances, saving a GSAx of 0.31 against a total xGF of 2.31. The work that he put in between the pipes was a huge reason why the Canucks even had a shot at securing the victory, and one hopes that while it won’t be needed, Demko can continue this standard of play.

To play against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Adam Foote turned to Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser, and Jake DeBrusk in a matchup role. Every time the Oilers’ big guns were out on the ice, this trio found themselves out there with them. It makes sense to put your best against their best, and considering that this line aren’t total defensive liabilities either, it seems like a no-brainer.

Defensively, they more than held up their end of the bargain. While McDrai dominated puck possession as they usually did, the duo didn’t manage more than 5 shots during their 5v5 TOI against DeBrusk-Pettersson-Boeser. McDavid and Draisaitl also did not record a goal during their shared TOI, which is definitely tidy work from the Canucks forward group. That much is all you could really ask for.

However, offensively, DeBrusk-Pettersson-Boeser left quite a bit to be desired. Yes, McDrai are very good players, but they aren’t exactly surrounded by the best supporting cast, and they still saw a little bit of ice time against the rest of the Oilers lineup. For Pettersson to only register two shots all night is not great work, as this “big line” was quiet when it came to chance generation. That is something that will need to change if Vancouver has postseason ambitions, to say the least.

The ones who did a lot of chance generation last night were none other than Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Braeden Cootes. These two have continued to build on the momentum of a strong camp and preseason, more than making their case to be included in Vancouver’s opening night roster.

These two put up a team-high 61.43 xGF% with Evander Kane on their wing (who looked a step slow, mind you), which was the best tally of any Canuck forward line. They also generated the most high-danger scoring chances at 5v5 play with 2, showing their credentials with 2 goals from Lekkerimaki. While they are by no means polished products, the two young forwards were probably some of the most creative players the Canucks had offensively last night, and definitely played a significant role in getting Vancouver the win.

The Canucks looked solid in their final preseason game. While the games themselves mean nothing, they simply add more data points to what the Canucks coaching staff and management are looking for to make their decisions on the final roster. For us, it also gives us plenty more to keep an eye out for as the season gets underway.

Vancouver hosts the Calgary Flames in 5 days on Thursday, October 9th, to begin their 2025-26 regular season.