Laurent Brossoit made 28 saves to earn the third shutout of his career as the Vegas Golden Knights dumped the Edmonton Oilers 4-0 Tuesday night at Rogers Place.
“We made the bigger mistakes, and they capitalized on those mistakes,” Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said after the game.
The Golden Knights took the lead halfway through the first when Brett Howden steamed down the left side and beat Edmonton goaltender Mike Smith five-hole.
On an Oilers power play late in the first, Vegas forward Reilly Smith blocked Edmonton defenceman Tyson Barrie’s point shot and broke in two-on-nothing with William Karlsson. Smith passed across to Karlsson, who buried his seventh.
“It’s something we know we need to take care of and we’ve been working on it,” Nugent-Hopkins said about allowing goals off the rush. “The first two are basically two breakaways or two on zero, and that’s tough on Smitty.”
“Those odd-man rushes come from lack of execution,” Zach Hyman said. “I think we were just a little sloppy in that sense. That’s how you give up a breakaway.”
The Oilers killed off a Vegas power play early in the second, but the Knights’ Alex Pietrangelo scored shortly after to make it 3-0.
“Part of it is Vegas; they come at you hard,” Oilers coach Dave Tippett said of the opponent.
“They’re a hard forechecking team. You’ve got to be solid with the puck. Time and space are going to be at a premium, and you have to be able to execute at that level, and we didn’t do it enough tonight.”
Smith added to the Vegas lead 14 seconds into the third.
The Oilers (23-17-3) are right back at it Wednesday night, hosting the Chicago Blackhawks game at 6 p.m. You can listen to the game on 630 CHED, starting with The Faceoff Show at 4:30 p.m.
– With files from 630 CHED’s Brenden Escott