The Edmonton Oilers opened their 2025-26 NHL schedule with a disheartening 4-3 loss to the Calgary Flames at Rogers Place on Wednesday (Oct. 8). The teams were tied at three goals apiece after overtime, before going to a shootout where the Flames prevailed.
Leon Draisaitl, Andrew Mangiapane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored for Edmonton, while the Flames got goals from Blake Coleman, Matvei Gridin, and Connor Zary. Calgary netminder Dustin Wolf made 32 saves to outduel his Oilers counterpart Stuart Skinner, who stopped 19 shots.
Edmonton went two-for-four with the man advantage, while the Flames converted one of their four power-play opportunities.
The Oilers led 3-0 in the second period before Calgary stormed back with three straight goals to force overtime. Edmonton has now lost its season-opening game in three straight years.
Another Opening Night Nightmare
Considering that Edmonton started its last two seasons with horrendously ugly losses – 8-1 to the Vancouver Canucks in 2023-24 and 6-0 to the Winnipeg Jets in 2024-25 – getting a point in Wednesday’s season-opener is a massive improvement. But based on how it happened, and who it was against, Wednesday’s loss somehow feels worse.
Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Oilers (Jess Starr/The Hockey Writers)
The Oilers were running away with this game, going up 3-0 when Draisaitl notched his 400th career goal when he put the puck in the back of the net while Edmonton was on a power play at 8:32 of the middle frame. At that juncture, a win felt virtually guaranteed.
Instead, Calgary scored two quick goals to cut Edmonton’s lead to one before the second intermission, then drew even when Coleman scored just 40 seconds into the third period.
In the 45-year history of the Battle of Alberta, the Flames had beaten Edmonton after trailing by three or more goals only once. Now it’s twice.
If you took an exit poll at Rogers Place on Wednesday, a lot of Oilers fans would probably say they’d rather lose by six goals than have the provincial rivals come into their barn and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in historic fashion.
Shootout Struggles Continue
Sudden death was required in the shootout after the Oilers and Flames each tallied once in the initial three rounds. The first four sudden-death rounds saw neither team able to score. Finally, in the fifth extra round, Edmonton’s Kasperi Kapanen fired a shot past Wolf that rang off the crossbar, setting the stage for Flames forward Nazem Kadri to backhand the puck past Skinner and lift the visitors to victory.
DO YOUR THING, 91 🥵🥵 pic.twitter.com/kQInPwb1Pw
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 9, 2025
This marked the third straight shootout loss for the Oilers, who are just 2-7 in the shootout since the start of the 2022-23 season. Edmonton hasn’t won a game via the shootout since Dec. 30, 2023.
What’s the reason for this lack of success? Edmonton has the league’s worst shootout save percentage (.571) since the start of 2022-23, but Wednesday’s outcome can’t be pinned on Skinner, who was only beaten twice on eight shootout attempts.
Meanwhile, over this current 2-7 stretch, only four players have scored in the shootout for Edmonton, and one – Derek Ryan – is now retired. The others are Draisaitl, Connor McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins. Draisaitl scored Edmonton’s only shootout goal on Wednesday, while Wolf stopped both McDavid and Nugent-Hopkins.
Draisaitl and McDavid have both seen a substantial downturn in their shootout production over the last three years. Through the 2021-22 season, they were converting at rates of 37.5% and 48.0%, respectively. Since the start of 2022-23, they are just 33.3% and 28.6%, respectively.
It’s baffling that a team with such a wealth of individual skill as the Oilers continues to struggle so much in the shootout. But it could simply be lack of experience: Edmonton’s nine shootout games since the start of 2022-23 are the second fewest in the league over that span.
New Oilers Debut
Wednesday’s game marked the Oilers regular season debut for four skaters: Issac Howard, Mangiapane, Alec Regula and David Tomasek. In the case of forwards Howard and Tomasek, it was also their first career NHL regular season game.
Related: 5 Things to Know About New Oilers’ Forward Andrew Mangiapane
Mangiapane had the best night of the four, scoring Edmonton’s only even-strength goal of the night, at 16:11 of the first period when he took a pass from McDavid and rifled the puck over Wolf’s shoulder.
Tomasek took two penalties and was in the box for Calgary’s second goal, but was very active offensively, registering three shots on net, and made a fantastic backhand pass to set up Draisaitl’s goal. Howard played only 10:43 in what was a mostly uneventful performance. Defenceman Regula had the roughest game of Edmonton’s newcomers, as he was on the ice for all three Calgary goals and was deserving of his plus/minus rating of minus-2.
The Oilers will now have two days to prepare for their next game, which comes Saturday (Oct. 11) when they host Vancouver.