Forward Arshdeep Bains hopes his final audition was good enough to earn him a spot in the Vancouver Canucks cast when the curtain opens on the NHL regular season.
Bains scored on the power play and added an assist as Vancouver defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 in the final pre-season game for both teams Friday night.
“I think there is a lot of desperation,” Bains said about the final chance to impress the Canuck coaches and management. “Everybody wants to make the team. There’s only so many spots.
“Everyone is giving their all.”
Jake DeBrusk scored into an empty net and collected two assists for the Canucks (3-2). Quinn Hughes and Carson Soucy also scored while Elias Pettersson had two assists.
“Just a little wakeup call,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said after the game. “I know it’s a big change from playing the Stanley Cup Finals — Game 7 — to exhibition season. And I think guys hearts are in it, but it’s just not quite the same. Understandably, but now we’re hitting the regular season and we need to pick 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 on a Canuck team that won 50 games and collected 109 points last year won’t be easy.
“Everyone is trying to put their best foot forward,” said the 23-year-old left-winger who grew up in nearby Surrey, B.C. “There’s a lot they want to build on from last year. I want to come in and help.”
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Bains, Aatu Raty and Nils Aman are all players on the bubble as the Canucks make their final roster decisions. With centres Pius Suter and Dakota Joshua both out with injuries there are spots open.
Bains played five games with the Canucks last year but didn’t register a point. In 59 games with Vancouver’s American Hockey League farm team in Abbotsford, B.C., the six-foot, 184-pound left-winger had 16 goals and 39 assists.
He one goal in three previous exhibition games this year.
Bains gave Vancouver a 3-0 lead at 7:50 of the second period. With about 10 seconds remaining in a tripping penalty to Mattias Janmark, Danton Heinen slid a pass across the front of the net that Bains banged into the open corner.
Bains played a role in Vancouver’s opening goal midway through the first period. He found a loose puck in the Oilers zone and tossed it along the boards to Hughes, whose shot from just inside the blue line beat a screened Skinner.
Canuck coach Rick Tocchet gave Bains a positive review.
“He had a good game,” said Tocchet. “He’s a guy that we’ve really got our eye on.
“He’s got to work on game management. He’s got to understand (there’s) certain times to stick handle (or) when to get the puck deep.”
Soucy likes the way Bains has developed during training camp.
“Just improvement every game, (he’s) a little more comfortable,” said Soucy. “I know coming in as a young guy, it’s hard to play the style you want.
“I think it showed tonight. He made a couple nice moves. A goal and an assist, I think he played really well.”
Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said a loss wasn’t how the Oilers wanted to end the pre-season.
Silvos also made some big saves, especially in the first period and late in the game when Edmonton was pushing.
“I didn’t think we played a bad game,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “We had a lot of chances that didn’t go in for us. We’re a fast team, and sometimes we don’t give ourselves the best opportunity to play fast when we’re just kind of playing around in the neutral zone and not putting pucks in pressuring their defence.”
“Obviously we want to win our last pre-season game, but we need to move forward and look forward to next Wednesday.”
The last time the teams played a game that mattered the Oilers defeated the Canucks in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinal. Edmonton went on to lose Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final to the Florida Panthers.
NOTES: Joshua is still recovering from off-season surgery to remove a tumour related to testicular cancer, but is back with the team … Canuck forward J.T. Miller played his first game of the exhibition season after taking a knock during training camp. … The last time the Oilers lost in the Stanley Cup final was 2006. The team missed the playoffs for the next 10 years. … Forward Connor Garland was one of the Canuck scratches.
UP NEXT: The Canucks open their regular season with home games Wednesday against the Calgary Flames and Friday against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Oilers open the season with a four-game homestand facing the Winnipeg Jets Wednesday, Chicago Blackhawks Saturday, Calgary Oct. 13 and Philadelphia Oct. 15.
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