Oilers finish off their pre-season with a 4-1 loss to the Canucks

Forward Arshdeep Bains hopes his last audition was bully capable to gain him a spot successful the Vancouver Canucks cast erstwhile the curtain opens connected the NHL regular season.

Bains scored connected the powerfulness play and added an assistance arsenic Vancouver defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 successful the last pre-season crippled for some teams Friday night.

“I deliberation determination is simply a batch of desperation,” Bains said astir the last accidental to impressment the Canuck coaches and management. “Everybody wants to marque the team. There’s lone truthful galore spots.

“Everyone is giving their all.”

Jake DeBrusk scored into an bare nett and collected 2 assists for the Canucks (3-2). Quinn Hughes and Carson Soucy besides scored portion Elias Pettersson had 2 assists.

“Just a small wakeup call,” Oilers caput manager Kris Knoblauch said aft the game. “I cognize it’s a large alteration from playing the Stanley Cup Finals — Game 7 — to accumulation season. And I deliberation guys hearts are successful it, but it’s conscionable not rather the same. Understandably, but present we’re hitting the regular play and we request to prime it up.”

Defenceman Evan Bouchard scored for the Oilers (3-5)

Vancouver goaltender Arturs Silovs stopped 28 shots.

Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner made 22 saves.

Bains knows making the roster connected a Canuck squad that won 50 games and collected 109 points past twelvemonth won’t beryllium easy.

“Everyone is trying to enactment their champion ft forward,” said the 23-year-old left-winger who grew up successful adjacent Surrey, B.C. “There’s a batch they privation to physique connected from past year. I privation to travel successful and help.”

Bains, Aatu Raty and Nils Aman are each players connected the bubble arsenic the Canucks make their last roster decisions. With centres Pius Suter and Dakota Joshua some retired with injuries determination are spots open.

Bains played 5 games with the Canucks last twelvemonth but didn’t registry a point. In 59 games with Vancouver’s American Hockey League workplace squad successful Abbotsford, B.C., the six-foot, 184-pound left-winger had 16 goals and 39 assists.

He 1 extremity successful 3 erstwhile accumulation games this year.

Bains gave Vancouver a 3-0 pb astatine 7:50 of the 2nd period. With astir 10 seconds remaining successful a tripping punishment to Mattias Janmark, Danton Heinen slid a walk crossed the beforehand of the nett that Bains banged into the unfastened corner.

Bains played a relation successful Vancouver’s opening extremity midway done the archetypal period. He recovered a escaped puck successful the Oilers portion and tossed it on the boards to Hughes, whose changeable from conscionable wrong the bluish enactment bushed a screened Skinner.

Canuck manager Rick Tocchet gave Bains a affirmative review.

“He had a bully game,” said Tocchet. “He’s a feline that we’ve truly got our oculus on.

“He’s got to enactment connected crippled management. He’s got to recognize (there’s) definite times to instrumentality grip (or) erstwhile to get the puck deep.”

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Soucy likes the mode Bains has developed during grooming camp.

“Just betterment each game, (he’s) a small much comfortable,” said Soucy. “I cognize coming successful arsenic a young guy, it’s hard to play the benignant you want.

“I deliberation it showed tonight. He made a mates bully moves. A extremity and an assist, I deliberation helium played truly well.”

Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said a nonaccomplishment wasn’t however the Oilers wanted to extremity the pre-season.

Silvos besides made immoderate large saves, particularly successful the archetypal play and precocious successful the crippled erstwhile Edmonton was pushing.

“I didn’t deliberation we played a atrocious game,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “We had a batch of chances that didn’t spell successful for us. We’re a accelerated team, and sometimes we don’t springiness ourselves the champion accidental to play accelerated erstwhile we’re conscionable benignant of playing astir successful the neutral portion and not putting pucks successful pressuring their defence,”

“Obviously we privation to triumph our past pre-season game, but we request to determination guardant and look guardant to adjacent Wednesday.”

The past clip the teams played a crippled that mattered the Oilers defeated the Canucks in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinal. Edmonton went connected to suffer Game 7 of the Stanley Cup last to the Florida Panthers.

NOTES: Joshua is inactive recovering from off-season country to region a tumour related to testicular cancer, but is backmost with the squad … Canuck guardant J.T. Miller played his archetypal crippled of the accumulation play aft taking a sound during grooming camp. … The past clip the Oilers mislaid successful the Stanley Cup last was 2006. The squad missed the playoffs for the adjacent 10 years. … Forward Connor Garland was 1 of the Canuck scratches.

UP NEXT: The Canucks open their regular play with location games Wednesday against the Calgary Flames and Friday against the Philadelphia Flyers.

The Oilers unfastened the play with a four-game homestand facing the Winnipeg Jets Wednesday, Chicago Blackhawks Saturday, Calgary Oct. 13 and Philadelphia Oct. 15.