The Edmonton Oilers scored three third-period goals to upend the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 Thursday night at Rogers Place.
Connor McDavid lead the way offensively for the Oilers with three assists which all but officially locks up his second straight Art Ross Trophy. McDavid currently leads the NHL with 106 points, eight points ahead of Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov who has two games left in his season.
“You know what, it’s not over until it’s over,” said McDavid when asked if he’s feeling any satisfaction. “Obviously there are still some great players with some games left so we’ll see.”
LISTEN: Connor McDavid on 630 CHED
The Oilers’ Ryan Nugent-Hopkins returned to the lineup after missing two games with a groin injury and opened the scoring 7:03 into the game. He finished off a pretty passing play with Ty Rattie and Connor McDavid drawing the assists.
The Golden Knights took the lead early in the second period with goals 2:47 apart from Brayden McNabb and Brandon Pirri.
Matt Benning tied it for the Oilers early in the third when his shot from the high slot dribbled through Malcolm Subban. On an Oilers power play, Ryan Carpenter hit the post for Vegas. Seconds later, at the other end, Mike Cammalleri sniped his seventh of the season to put the Oilers ahead with 9:53 left. Rattie went top shelf to make it 4-2 about 6:45 later.
However, the Golden Knights wouldn’t go away. Oscar Lindberg scored with 5:23 left. The Oilers thought they had put it away with 1:48 left when Kris Russell scored. However, the goal was disallowed as Jesse Puljujarvi was called for tripping, even though replays showed Puljujarvi didn’t make contact with the fallen Vegas player. The Oilers were able to kill off the penalty to preserve the win.
“Looking back, not the right call ultimately,” explained McDavid on the penalty that neglected the Russell goal. “You can see during the live time, it’s hard to make that call with so many sticks there. You prefer not to guess on those types of situations but the ref saw what he saw and you can’t blame him for that.”
“We’re in the zone and they draw the penalty, which based on my expression obviously I didn’t agree with it,” added head coach Todd McLellan. “The goals disallowed, we go on the penalty kill and the kill does a pretty good job but we needed one more big save and Talbot made it with three or four seconds left.”
LISTEN: Todd McLellan on 630 CHED
Defenceman Keegan Lowe made his Oilers debut as both Andrej Sekera and Yohann Auvitu were out with injuries. Lowe played 13:01, had three shots on goal and was -1.
“The nerves were definitely there, and I settled into it as the game went along,” said Lowe. “My first couple of shifts were probably my worst shifts of the game. I was nervous and you over think things a little bit but its just one of those things and you can’t really avoid it. After you get through those you start to feel a little more comfortable every period.”
The Oilers (35-40-6) snapped a five-game winless skid. They’ll close out the regular season Saturday against Vancouver.
With files from Brenden Ullrich
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