The team at Daily Faceoff have fired up their weekly power rankings for the first time this season, and have the Edmonton Oilers coming in seventh.

It comes after an up-and-down week for the team in which they lost their season opener 6-5 in overtime to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, before beating them 9-7 on Thursday. They closed the week with a much different game, beating the Seattle Kraken 3-1 on Saturday.

There’s a split between the two who do Daily Faceoff’s power rankings, however, as Mike Gould ranked the Oilers 14th, while Scott Maxwell had them fourth.

While Gould was complimentary of defenceman Evan Bouchard’s first three games that earned him the NHL’s second star of the week, saying “Bouchard probably should win the Norris at some point,” and that “he’s scary good, and I don’t feel bad about saying it,” he didn’t offer any thoughts on the play by the team as a whole.

Maxwell, meanwhile, was surprised when he got looking at the games.

I was expecting the Oilers to be around Mike’s placement for myself considering how chaotic their first week has been, but after looking at their numbers, it’s incredible how much their problems continue to be just goaltending. The only metric of theirs not in the top 10 was 5v5 expected goals for, not against, with the latter stat being eighth. They just still can’t get saves, and I definitely see why Mike baked that into his ranking. For Edmonton’s sake, hopefully Saturday’s 3-1 win over the Kraken is a building point for Devon Levi, who has the best chance of his career to cement his place in the NHL.

Also, is Evan Bouchard’s plan this season to just break every scoring record to finally get voters to realize he should get more Norris Trophy consideration? Because if so, I’m here for it.

Ovechkin set to retire

Twenty-two years after being drafted first overall in the 2004 draft by the Washington Capitals, Alex Ovechkin, the NHL’s all-time leading goalscorer, has announced he will retire at the end of the season.

Ovechkin informed his teammates he would be hanging up his skates in a video later shared on social media.

“I’m pretty sure, for me, for my family…it’s very important for you guys to know first,” Ovechkin said in the video. “It’s sad, but it is what it is. We have an unbelievable team this year…82 games left. Let’s make the playoffs. Let’s have fun.

“Enjoy the moment because times fly. For young guys, first-year or experienced guys. I remember that moment… It seems like yesterday was my first year, and right now, this is my 22nd year.”

Alex Ovechkin announced to his teammates this morning that this season will be his final in the NHL pic.twitter.com/wnnnkrIl5U

- Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 5, 2026

Ovechkin broke into the NHL as a rookie in a massive way, winning the Calder Trophy as he scored 52 goals and 106 points in 81 games, and all he’s done throughout his career is just that: score goals. He’s racked up 929 of them in 1,575 games, breaking the previous record of 894 held by Wayne Gretzky in April 2025, scoring a power-play goal from his office.

He’s scored 50 goals nine times, tied for the most in league history with Gretzky and Mike Bossy, while winning the Rocket Richard as the league’s top goal scorer a record nine times. Along with it, the 12-time all-star has three Hart Trophies, three Ted Lindsay awards, as well as a Conn Smythe Trophy from when he scored 15 goals and 27 points in 24 playoff games in 2018, helping the Capitals win his lone Stanley Cup.

Zach Laing is the managing editor at Daily Faceoff Edmonton and news director at The Nation Network. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.

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THE EDMONTON ORIGINALS ARE BACK

Nation Gear’s iconic Nation Citizen, and Hope Will Never Die originals have returned in the limited edition OG Collection on nationgear.ca. 

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