EDMONTON – Hey, this rebuilding stuff isn’t as bad as people say.

You can score five goals against a Stanley Cup contender, then blow a three-goal lead in the third period. Then you can win in overtime because your secret weapon is a fourth-line, nine-goal scorer who has demon hands at three-on-three.

And you can have riotous fun. 

If this is rebuilding, let the construction continue for the Vancouver Canucks.

“Not the way we drew it up, for sure,” Manny Malhotra said after winning Game 1 as a National Hockey League head coach, 6-5 Tuesday against the Edmonton Oilers. “Obviously, a lot of really good things to be able to score five goals in a game. We don't want to give up three in the third period; that's something that we'll definitely need to work on. But just the resiliency to stay with it for us was a huge factor in the game. Obviously, the joy of winning a game takes precedence right now.”

You’d probably have to go back a couple of years, possibly to the 2024 playoffs, to find a group of Canuck players as happy as these ones were Tuesday night.

The game was full of roller-coaster drops and ascents and signs of the biggest rebuild in franchise history.

Max Sasson, who was in the minors at the start of last season, was deployed against Connor McDavid and battled the best player in the world to a draw.

Sasson scored on a beautiful give-and-go with Drew O’Connor and set up Paul Cotter’s game-winner at........

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