VANCOUVER — There were questions, and the Edmonton Oilers certainly had answers about how they blew a three-goal lead in Wednesday night’s 5-4 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.

Especially when the Oilers’ latest loss dropped them to 0-5 against the Canucks in the regular season and playoffs combined. Even while facing questions about what went wrong, the Oilers have remained steadfast about their performance in Game 1 and why the series isn’t over yet after just one game.

“I think we gave them this, and I think we knew it was going to be a long series,” Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner said. “That’s what the playoffs are like – you have to win four games in order to keep going. They’re one game ahead now, and we know we can beat these guys. They’ve beaten us five games this year, but it gives us a lot of enthusiasm for ourselves to try to come back and get back into the series.” Immediately.”

Edmonton took a 2-0 lead on first-period goals by Zach Hyman and Mattias Ekholm. The Canucks cut the lead in half in the second period when Dakota Joshua scored 53 seconds into the frame, only to see Cody Ceci and Hyman push the lead to 4-1 with 6:49 remaining in the second.

So how did the Oilers go from a strong leader to eventually losing their grip?

Canucks center Elias Lindholm was at the goal line when he put a shot on net that appeared to take a deflection as it went past Skinner, making the score 4-2 with 2:59 remaining in the second.

With just over 10 minutes remaining in the third period, Canucks forward Brock Boeser played a pass to JT Miller that saw the puck come off his stick and go past Skinner to cut the deficit to 4-3.

Four minutes later, Canucks forward Teddy Blueger played a backhand pass to Nikita Zadorov, with the big defenseman firing a slap shot that beat Skinner to tie the score at 4-4 with 6:13 left.

Then came the goal that allowed the Canucks to complete the comeback, causing Rogers Arena to go from a quiet library to a deafening roar.

Vancouver had just won a faceoff in its own zone when Zadorov played a executed pass from behind the net to Joshua. He held the puck for less than two seconds at center ice, freeing up Connor Garland to fake a shot before launching an actual attempt one second later that went past Skinner for a 5-4 lead with 5:35 remaining.

Garland’s goal also underscored how the Canucks, after struggling to find their footing, outscored the Oilers 19-7 between the second and third periods.

“It’s something we have to learn a little bit from,” Ekholm said. “When they score, it’s all about the next shift. They’re going to score. It’s not like we’re not going to keep them with nothing. At the end of the day, we allowed them to score three goals and put ourselves in a difficult position.” Up until that point, we were in a really great position, but we lost it, and that’s the disappointing part.”

Ekholm also said he believes a fair number of the Canucks’ goals were not due to the Oilers’ system collapsing. Natural Stat Trick’s metrics showed that although the Canucks had 10 high-danger chances, they only had one 5-on-5 chance in the third period while shooting at 42.1%.

Oilers star center and captain Connor McDavid echoed that sentiment.

“I thought they were weird goals all around,” McDavid said. “We scored some strange goals too. In a hectic kind of game, you’ll get that. Definitely some strange goals, and some avoidable ones as well. Overall, I didn’t mind our game.”

Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said his team was somewhat passive.

But did Knoblauch agree with his players that the system worked but did not get the desired results?

“There are always things you can adjust,” Knoblauch said. “There will be mistakes. The players have to read and react. I think they are in very good positions, and we have not had any major breakdowns.”