The Edmonton Oilers lost for the sixth time in their last seven games, falling 6-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights Sunday night at Rogers Place.
“We’ve lost six out of seven in many different ways now, which is concerning,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said.
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Connor McDavid opened the scoring 52 seconds into the game when he tipped a Matt Benning point shot past Marc-Andre Fleury. William Karlsson scored on a tip of his own just before the 13-minute mark. Late in the period on a power play, Alex Chiasson whacked a puck over Fleury’s pad for this eighth of the season.
The Golden Knights took control with three goals in 2:12 early in the second period. Cody Eakin scored shorthanded, Max Pacioretty had his centring pass deflect in off Benning, and Jonathan Marchessault sniped one on the power play.
“We didn’t back away from the game. They had a very emotional game last night and I think that’s a very important thing when you have a chance to get back into the game in the second period and get a couple of goals, our guys get fired up, and you have to make sure you foot on the gas because you don’t want to give them any motive in their building if they get a couple of goals in the second period,” said Golden Knights defenceman Nate Schmidt.
“We just have to focus on playing a complete 60 minutes,” McDavid said. “We have stretches where we dominate games and the team can’t get out of their zone, and then we have stretches where we can’t get out of our own zone.”
Marchessault and Reilly Smith extended the Vegas lead early in the third before Leon Draisaitl got one back for the Oilers.
“Any time your goaltender gives up six, I’m sure the group is looking for another save,” McLellan said. “But we were porous around him.”
“It’s tough to pinpoint,” McDavid said. “We just need to be mentally stronger. If something goes wrong, we’ve got to be able to brush it off and move on.”
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The Golden Knights have struggled this season after a push to the Stanley Cup Final last year, but Marchessault hopes they ended that tough stretch on Sunday.
“It’s been a roller coaster for us, but I think we should be able to build off that and go forward,” Marchessault said.
The Oilers, 9-10-1, will visit San Jose on Tuesday.