San Jose Sharks 1-3 Edmonton Oilers: how it happened
Edmonton's fourth straight win spoiled Macklin Celebrini's return at SAP Center, as the Oilers stretched their season-opening point streak to five games.
The Edmonton Oilers keep finding ways to start fast. Saturday's 3-1 win in San Jose made it four victories in a row and a 4-0-1 opening — a point streak to begin the season the franchise has managed only six times, and not since 2021-22, per NHL.com.
How it unfolded
Mattias Ekholm opened the scoring at 12:37 of the first period, hammering a point shot past a screened Yaroslav Askarov after Isaac Howard worked the puck off the right-wing boards. The score stayed 1-0 until early in the third, when Connor McDavid sped down the left wing and found Vasily Podkolzin at the top of the slot for a one-timer at 3:13. Alex Formenton added his first goal as an Oiler at 5:40, backhanding home off a rush set up by Mathieu Joseph.
The Sharks' answer came from the player everyone came to see. Macklin Celebrini, back after missing two games with a lower-body injury, took a feed from fellow young star Michael Misa and wired a wrist shot from the left circle at 11:19 — his first goal of the season. It was as close as San Jose (3-2-0) got, with Tristan Jarry closing out the win in the Edmonton net.
The numbers behind the streak
McDavid's assist gave him 13 points through five games, while Podkolzin — suddenly a finisher — has five goals among his seven points. The quieter headline belongs to Evan Bouchard: his helper on Podkolzin's goal made him just the third defenseman in NHL history with 12 points through his team's first five games, joining Harry Cameron (1917-18) and Morgan Rielly (2018-19), according to NHL.com.
There was a subplot on the other bench too: Darnell Nurse, traded to San Jose on July 1 after 12 seasons in Edmonton, faced his former team for the first time and led the Sharks with five shots.
For San Jose, a 3-2-0 start with Celebrini back and scoring is hardly a crisis — but Saturday showed the gap that still exists against the West's established heavyweights.