The Edmonton Oilers lost in regulation for the first time this season, losing 4-2 to the New York Islanders on Thursday evening (October 16) at UBS Arena in Elmont.
Edmonton’s goals came from Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, while Oilers netminder Stuart Skinner stopped 21 of the 24 shots he faced.
Related: Horvat’s hat trick leads Islanders to 4-2 win over Oilers
Bo Horvat led the Islanders with a hat trick and Mathew Barzal also scored for the home side, who got a 31-save performance from goalkeeper David Rittich.
The Oilers had a 33-25 advantage in shots on goal. Edmonton went one-for-four on the power play, while the Islanders converted one of five chances with the man advantage.
The loss drops Edmonton to 2-1-1 and now sits in third place in the Pacific Division standings with five points from four games.
Tough night for Bouchard
Hockey games are won or lost as a team, so it is not right to attribute defeat to one player. But with that said, Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard deserves most of the blame for Thursday’s loss.
In the first period alone, Bouchard committed a couple of horrific turnovers, the second immediately resulting in Brazal scoring to give the Islanders a 1-0 lead. While trying to dangle around Brazal at center ice, Bouchard was stripped of the puck by the Islanders forward, who skated in all alone and fired the puck past Skinner.
With Edmonton leading 2-1 in the second period, Bouchard left his man, allowing Horvat to get wide open. Jean-Gabriel Pageau made a beautiful pass to Spring Horvat on a breakaway, and moments later the puck was behind Skinner and the scoreboard read 2-2.
Finally, in the final seconds of the third period, as Edmonton pushed for the equalizer with Skinner being pulled for the extra attacker, Bouchard missed a check, allowing Jonathan Drouin to get the puck out of the Islanders zone and onto the ice, where Drouin fed Horvat for the New York center’s hat-trick goal at 7:51 p.m.
Bouchard finished the game with a plus/minus of minus-3, which tied for the worst rating of his NHL regular season career.
Solid night for Skinner
Skinner can’t be faulted for any of the three goals he scored Thursday, including what turned out to be the game-winner by Horvat on an Islanders power play with just under five minutes left in the third period. The Oilers netminder bailed out his teammates (including Bouchard) with a pair of big saves earlier in the game and gave Edmonton a chance to win.
Stuart Skinner is dialed in 🫡
📺: SN360
📲: Stream on Sportsnet+ pic.twitter.com/DNGGt9RCkH— Sportnet (@Sportsnet) October 17, 2025
It was an encouraging performance for Skinner, who didn’t have a great night at Edmonton’s season-opening shootout loss to the Calgary Flames on October 8, but came back with a shutout against the New York Rangers on Tuesday (October 14). He has shown what Oil Country consistently wants to see from Skinner over the past two games.
Oilers trail for the first time
Edmonton didn’t trail even a second through the first three games, but that streak came to an end after Barzal’s goal at 16:23 of the first period. The Oilers answered quickly, with Draisaitl scoring on the power play just 77 seconds later to make the score 1-1 and then taking the lead on Nugent-Hopkins’ goal midway through the middle frame.
A big reason for Edmonton’s 2-0-1 start is that the Oilers weren’t chasing the game, and for the most part, they weren’t chasing on Long Island either: they were ahead by 9:03 on the scoreboard from Thursday’s game and trailed by just 6:03. However, this is the second time in four games this season that Edmonton has taken a lead late in the second period.
Oilers hit total hits new low
After averaging 19 hits through their first three games, the Oilers recorded a paltry seven hits at UBS Arena. That’s the fewest by any team so far in the 2025-26 NHL season and ties for the fourth-fewest single-game hits for the Oilers since 2009.
Edmonton was led with two goals by winger Vasily Podkolzin. Troy Stecher was the only Oilers blueliner to record a hit.
The total number of hits should be taken with a grain of salt, as more hits are often related to a lack of puck possession. And sure enough, Edmonton defeated the Islanders on Thursday. But that said, it’s almost inconceivable that a team’s blue line would come together for a single hit total.
On a positive defensive note, Darnell Nurse deserves credit for racking up six blocked shots. The veteran backline now has a team-high 13 blocks this season and ranks third in the entire NHL with an average of 3.25 blocked shots per game.
The Oilers now head to Newark, where they will take on the host New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center on Saturday afternoon (October 18).
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