The Oilers score five second-period goals to erase a 2-0 deficit and beat the Ducks 5-2 as Evan Bouchard scores twice.
The Oilers did have to win a different way in Anaheim.
They just compressed the entire correction into one period.
Edmonton fell behind 2-0, was outshot 16-6 in the first and spent 20 minutes getting pushed around by a Ducks team that looked faster, cleaner and more dangerous. Then the Oilers scored five unanswered goals in the second period and turned what had looked like their worst game of the young season into a 5-2 win.
Edmonton improved to 3-0-1 and has won three straight. More importantly, the Oilers showed that their early offense does not require an ideal opening script.
Anaheim Owned the First
The Ducks did almost everything they wanted in the opening period.
Beckett Sennecke scored twice on the power play, first at 4:11 and again at 15:28, with Leo Carlsson helping create both goals. Anaheim’s speed forced Edmonton into long defensive shifts, and the Ducks carried a 16-6 shot advantage into the intermission.
The 2-0 lead did not flatter them.
Edmonton was losing battles along the walls, arriving second to loose pucks and spending too much time defending its own zone. Draisaitl said afterward that Anaheim had its legs immediately while the Oilers were still searching for theirs.
That was exactly the kind of game Edmonton’s first week had not yet required it to solve. The Oilers had already shown they could win track meets and tighter defensive games. Anaheim forced them to recover from being clearly outplayed first.
Eleven Seconds Changed It
The second period was only 11 seconds old when Evan Bouchard put Edmonton back into the game.
His long shot from the right point found its way through traffic and past Lukas Dostal. A two-goal deficit became one before Anaheim had a chance to re-establish the territorial control it had built over the opening 20 minutes.
That first shift mattered because Edmonton never let the Ducks reset.
Kasperi Kapanen tied the game at 6:30 on the power play, burying McDavid’s pass from the left circle for the 100th goal of his NHL career.
The score was suddenly 2-2.
Anaheim had spent an entire period building control. Edmonton erased it in less than seven minutes.
Bouchard Took Over
The go-ahead goal came from the same place as Edmonton’s first.
Bouchard moved into space above the circles, took the puck from Draisaitl and beat Dostal again at 14:12. It was his second goal of the night and his NHL-leading sixth through four games.
He finished with two goals and an assist, pushing his season total to 10 points.
That puts Bouchard in rare company. He became only the fifth defenseman in NHL history to reach 10 points within his team’s first four games, joining Bobby Orr, Pat Stapleton, Harry Cameron and Morgan Rielly.
That start is doing more than giving Edmonton another hot scorer. Bouchard’s production changes how defenses can load up against McDavid and Draisaitl. If the Oilers’ stars draw coverage lower in the zone and Bouchard keeps converting the space above them, opponents have to defend another layer of the attack.
Draisaitl Found Every Opening
Draisaitl did not score Wednesday.
He controlled the period anyway.
He assisted on both Bouchard goals, created Vasily Podkolzin’s breakaway with a stretch pass and picked up another helper on McDavid’s goal late in the second. He finished with four assists, the 12th time in his career he has recorded at least four in one game.
The Podkolzin goal was the cleanest example. Draisaitl recognized Anaheim’s defensive line stepping forward, sent the puck through the neutral zone and put Podkolzin behind everybody. Podkolzin finished the breakaway to make it 4-2.
Podkolzin now has a point in all four games, with four goals and two assists.
The Oilers’ scoring is still being driven by elite players. The important change is how many different pieces are now getting pulled into the production around them.
McDavid Finished the Period
The fifth goal looked almost routine because of who scored it.
McDavid attacked with speed during four-on-four play, entered above the left circle and beat Dostal five-hole with 52 seconds remaining in the second.
It was Edmonton’s fifth unanswered goal in 19 minutes and eight seconds.
McDavid finished with a goal and two assists and now leads the NHL with 12 points through four games, including nine assists.
Edmonton had only 17 shots through two periods. Five had gone in.
Dostal was replaced by Ville Husso for the third.
Levi Kept the Door Open
The five-goal second period makes it easy to reduce the game to Edmonton’s offense.
Devon Levi made sure the comeback remained possible.
Anaheim finished with 31 shots to Edmonton’s 19. Levi stopped 29, including every Ducks shot after Sennecke’s second power-play goal.
That mattered most after Edmonton had already taken control. The Oilers committed two minor penalties only 45 seconds apart late in the third, giving Anaheim a six-on-three after Husso was pulled.
The Ducks still could not score.
Levi has now won three games in a row. Edmonton’s first week has contained enough offensive fireworks to hide the goaltending story, but Wednesday required him to absorb pressure before the Oilers had found their game.
That is a more useful test than protecting a four-goal lead.
Anaheim’s Power Play Is Real
The Ducks leave with one obvious early-season strength intact.
Both Anaheim goals came on the power play. All three Ducks goals in Sunday’s overtime win against Florida also came with the man advantage.
That means Anaheim has scored five goals in its first two home games and all five have come on the power play.
Sennecke now has the kind of early production that validates why Anaheim has placed so much responsibility on its young forwards. Carlsson has seven points through three games and became the first Ducks player to open a season with three consecutive multipoint games.
The problem Wednesday was what happened after the special teams stopped controlling the game.
Anaheim scored twice in the first and never scored again. Once Edmonton started winning possession at five-on-five, the Ducks could not slow the transition from pressure into damage.
Five Goals Is Becoming Normal
The dangerous part of Edmonton’s start is how quickly extraordinary offense has begun to look ordinary.
The Oilers have scored at least five goals in three of their first four games. They lead the NHL at 5.5 goals per game.
They have done it through different structures.
Vancouver produced a 9-7 track meet. Seattle required Edmonton to win 3-1 and wait until late in the third for Draisaitl to break the tie. Anaheim controlled the opening 20 minutes before the Oilers turned the second period into five unanswered goals.
That variety matters more than simply counting goals.
The preseason expectation around Edmonton was never that McDavid and Draisaitl would stop producing. The question was whether the Oilers could become less dependent on one specific version of their stars taking over a game.
Four games is not enough to settle that question. It is enough to notice that the answers are becoming less repetitive.
Edmonton Won the Ugly Start
The final score makes the night look comfortable.
It was not.
Anaheim was better for the first 20 minutes. The Ducks had the lead, the shots and the territorial advantage. Edmonton had six shots and very little evidence that the game was about to flip.
Then Bouchard scored 11 seconds after the intermission and the Oilers changed the entire mechanism of the game.
That is the expectation update worth carrying forward. Edmonton does not merely have enough offense to dominate when everything starts correctly. Through four games, it has also shown enough top-end creation, transition ability and goaltending to survive when the opening script fails.
The Oilers did not need to win the first period.
They needed one period that Anaheim could not survive.
Sources
NHL, October 8, 2026 — Oilers-Ducks game recap and official statistics | Edmonton Oilers, October 8, 2026 — Oilers 5, Ducks 2 recap and player notes | Anaheim Ducks, October 8, 2026 — Ducks-Oilers recap | Reuters, October 8, 2026 — Oilers erase 2-0 deficit with five-goal second period