The Edmonton Oilers’ five-game winning streak came to an end Saturday night with a 4-3 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at Rogers Place.
“It’s disappointing we didn’t get the two points tonight,” Oilers Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. “I thought we did some good things, but the other team has certain attributes that make them a good team and I thought some of the goals we gave up tonight were preventable.”
Both teams scored on their first shots on goal. Jack Eichel flicked a right wing shot past Stuart Skinner 61 seconds into the game. Zach Hyman tapped in a pass from Draisaitl just over three minutes later.
“It was a tight game–it’s what you expect in the playoff,” Leon Draisaitl said. “Obviously, they’re a team that we could face. I think we know how to handle these types of games and tonight didn’t go our way, but we’ll take the point.”
The Golden Knights scored on the power play late in the first thanks to a long wrister by Pavel Dorofeyev.
“The teams are built pretty much the same way,” Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm said. “I thought we were as good as they were. We could’ve won that game just like they did, but they came out on top tonight and we’ll have to learn from it.”
Draisaitl scored the only goal of the second period. He positioned himself in the slot with his back to the net, took a pass from Connor McDavid, then spun and fired in his 45th of the season.
The Golden Knights dominated the opening stages of the third and went ahead with 13:03 left when Jonathan Marchessault cracked a long one-timer past Skinner. Warren Foegele leveled it 3-3 when his wrister snuck through Laurent Brossoit with 8:41 to go.
“Going into tonight, we knew how important this game was to us,” Foegele said. “Looking at the standings, we wanted those two points and just came up short, but it was a competitive game.”
With 2:34 left in overtime, Nicolas Roy found himself alone in front. Skinner stopped the initial shot, but Roy slammed in the rebound to end the game.
“We blew a coverage opportunity and it ended up in the back of our net–they get the extra point,” Woodcroft said. “When there’s a coverage breakdown in overtime, it’s usually a grade A chance. We had one or two chances but they had the best chance and they converted.”
The Oilers, 41-23-9, will visit the Arizona Coyotes on Monday (630 CHED, Face-off Show at 6 p.m., game at 8 p.m.).