Bouchard's Six-Goal Start Powered Edmonton's Five-Goal Comeback — but Anaheim Exposed a Warning
GOATIFYFor twenty minutes in Anaheim, the Edmonton Oilers looked like a team about to be punished for its slow start. Beckett Sennecke scored twice on the power play, the Ducks controlled the opening period and Edmonton trailed 2-0. Then Evan Bouchard scored eleven seconds after the intermission. By the next break, the Oilers had scored five unanswered goals, turned the game into a 5-2 victory and added another extraordinary chapter to Bouchard's opening week.
The comeback was not simply a reminder that Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can overwhelm an opponent. It showed how quickly Edmonton's defensemen and supporting forwards can turn possession into goals. It also left a useful question: can the Oilers produce that pressure without first conceding control of the game?
Sennecke's Two Power-Play Goals Gave Anaheim a Real Opening
The Ducks' 2-0 lead was earned rather than gifted. Anaheim came out faster, won races to loose pucks and held a 16-6 advantage in first-period shots. Sennecke provided the finishing touch on both power plays, scoring at 4:11 and 15:28. His first finish came from close range, and the second redirected a Leo Carlsson feed from below the goal line. For a young team trying to establish itself against established contenders, those were meaningful signs of composure and execution.
Carlsson's two assists also mattered. He entered the night already creating offense at a high rate and left with seven points through Anaheim's first three games. His ability to draw defenders toward the puck and then find Sennecke is one reason the Ducks' top young players can make even a dangerous opponent chase. Anaheim had scored all three of its goals on the power play in its previous overtime win against Florida, too. That pattern suggests a legitimate special-teams weapon, although it also raises a question about how consistently the Ducks can generate offense at even strength.
Edmonton's response should not erase the opening-period warning. The Oilers were late to several battles and gave Anaheim too much room to establish its attack. Devon Levi ultimately made 29 saves, and his work during the first period helped keep the deficit from becoming more damaging. A team with Edmonton's scoring potential can recover from two goals; a team with championship ambitions cannot assume that every opponent will permit a five-goal counterattack.
The matchup carried extra context after Anaheim eliminated Edmonton in the first round of the 2026 playoffs. The accompanying photograph shows Sennecke celebrating during that earlier series, not Wednesday's regular-season game. The personnel and emotional backdrop made this rematch compelling, but the hockey lesson was immediate: Anaheim's young core can create problems for Edmonton when the Ducks dictate the pace and force the Oilers to defend in extended stretches.
Bouchard Turned One Shift Into a Five-Goal Avalanche
The turning point arrived before Anaheim had time to settle into the second period. Eleven seconds after the faceoff, Bouchard drove a shot from the right point through traffic and cut the deficit in half. The timing was as important as the goal itself. Edmonton immediately put Anaheim on the defensive, took the initiative back and made a two-goal advantage feel precarious rather than secure.
Kasperi Kapanen tied the game at 6:30 with a power-play one-timer for the 100th goal of his NHL career. Bouchard then delivered the go-ahead strike at 14:12, hammering another shot from above the circles. Leon Draisaitl's stretch pass sent Vasily Podkolzin clear for a breakaway goal at 16:49, and McDavid completed the five-goal period with 52 seconds remaining. Five goals in less than twenty minutes, scored by four players, turned a night of early frustration into a decisive road victory.
Bouchard's two goals pushed him to six in four games, the highest total in the league at that point. Only Harry Cameron, who scored eight in four games for the Toronto Arenas in 1917-18, had more goals by a defenseman over the first four games of a season. Bouchard also reached ten points in four games, joining an extraordinarily short list of defensemen that includes Bobby Orr, Pat Stapleton, Harry Cameron and Morgan Rielly. These are early-season milestones rather than guarantees of a full-season scoring pace, but they illustrate just how disruptive Edmonton's blue-line attack has become.
The goals also demonstrate why opponents cannot defend Edmonton solely by concentrating on McDavid and Draisaitl below the tops of the circles. When Bouchard is given a shooting lane, screens and deflections can make a point shot dangerous. When defenders step out to challenge him, the Oilers' elite passers can exploit the space that opens behind them. Draisaitl finished with four assists, his twelfth career NHL game with at least four, because Edmonton's attack gave him several different ways to create.
There is an important distinction between an explosive period and a complete performance. Edmonton still needed to survive the first twenty minutes to create the opportunity. But once the Oilers began winning the small puck battles and supporting the play higher in the zone, Anaheim had no reliable answer. Bouchard supplied the spark; the structure around him allowed the spark to become a five-goal run.
McDavid Closed the Door, but Control Is Still Edmonton's Test
McDavid's goal was the final punctuation mark. With the teams playing four-on-four late in the second, he carried speed into the zone and beat Lukas Dostal from above the left hash marks. The goal gave McDavid three points on the night and twelve through Edmonton's first four games, including nine assists. He remained the league's points leader, and the Oilers improved to 3-0-1 with a third consecutive victory.
That production helps explain why Edmonton can look unbeatable for stretches. Bouchard can generate offense from the blue line, Draisaitl can thread passes through a changing defensive shape, and McDavid can turn a small gap into a dangerous entry before the opposition has reset. Podkolzin's four-game point streak and Kapanen's milestone goal were further reminders that the finishing is not confined to one line. Edmonton had scored at least five goals in three of its first four games and was averaging 5.5 per contest.
Yet the shot totals complicate the celebration. Anaheim finished with 31 shots to Edmonton's 19, and Dostal had faced just 17 before being replaced after the second period. The Oilers were extraordinarily efficient during their burst, not overwhelmingly dominant from the opening faceoff. That distinction matters because the team had already shown both extremes in a 9-7 win against Vancouver earlier in October: a brilliant attacking stretch followed by an uncomfortable defensive collapse. A five-goal period is a weapon, not a substitute for protecting the middle of the ice for sixty minutes.
Edmonton did at least finish this game without another collapse. The Ducks pulled their goaltender for a late six-on-three after two Oilers penalties, but failed to score. Levi's performance gave Edmonton a platform to survive the uneven start and protect the lead. The third period ended scoreless, a quieter ending that may ultimately matter as much to the coaching staff as the spectacular middle frame.
Anaheim has its own reasons not to panic. Sennecke's two goals and Carlsson's early production point to a young core that can compete with elite opponents. Eighteen-year-old Nikita Klepov also made his NHL debut, becoming the youngest player in Ducks history. The difference between promising and polished was visible in the second period, when Anaheim allowed Edmonton to dictate the tempo and could not interrupt the momentum. The Oilers have their own version of that challenge: learning to impose their preferred game before the scoreboard forces them to.
Edmonton left Anaheim with a 5-2 win, another record-setting Bouchard performance and more evidence that its stars can change a game in minutes. The comeback also supplied a sharper standard for what comes next. If the Oilers can combine their five-goal explosiveness with the defensive patience they showed after taking the lead, their opening-week numbers will look less like a hot streak and more like a sustainable identity.
