If you were boxscore-watching Thursday night’s game between the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks, you wouldn’t be able to tell that Alberta’s team was short four members of their top-six.

In fact, you wouldn’t think they were missing any players, because on a night when the Oilers score nine goals, one would think Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman would be a part of the mix. That wasn’t the case.

Just don’t look at the goals against. A seven-spot against is tough to look at.

The issues at hand are all too common for the Oilers. Just days ago, we heard head coach Mike Babcock talk about the “ridiculious” season-opening performance, indicating the team had “serious work to do.”

Consider some of it done.

“I thought tonight, to tell you the truth, I thought we really started well,” he said. “I thought we played the game hard and did really good things, and then we stopped doing good things.”

And that’s the kicker. Early in the game, it was all Edmonton and often. 4-0 after the first frame on goals from Vasily Podkolzin, Owen Michaels (his first in the NHL), Evan Bouchard and Ryan Shea. It took all of 27 seconds for Leon Draisaitl to make it 5-0 in the second period, and while the Canucks got a couple within a frantic first six minutes, the........

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