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For the second time in the last three home games, the Vegas Golden Knights have allowed seven or more goals scored by a divisional opponent in a game. Tuesday night, the Edmonton Oilers walked out of T-Mobile Arena with a 7-4 win over the Knights.
Leading the charge for the Oilers was center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins who finished his night with one goal and four assists for a five-point game. Nugent-Hopkins was named the game’s first star.
“In general, we didn’t defend at our typical level,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “It takes an NHL level to stop the Edmonton Oilers. We tried to win [while] playing their type of game and trying to make plays that weren’t there.”
Fellow centers Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl also tallied multi-point games in the win for the Oilers. McDavid finished the game with three assists and Draisaitl had a goal and an assist. McDavid and Draisaitl were named the second and third stars of the game respectively.
This loss for the Golden Knights puts their record at 46-22-6 with 98 points in the Pacific Division. Vegas holds a two-point division lead over the Los Angeles Kings and a three-point lead over the Oilers.
Vegas will hit the road again on Thursday night as they get set to take on another divisional opponent. Thursday’s matchup is a meeting with the San Jose Sharks inside the SAP Center in San Jose, CA. Puck drop is set for 7:30 p.m. and can be seen on AT&T Sportsnet in Las Vegas or ESPN+ in all other markets.
This will be the final matchup of the season between Vegas and San Jose. Vegas leads the season series 2-1.
The Vegas penalty kill failed to kill off any of three penalties they faced, making three of the three of the seven Edmonton goals came via the power play.
For the first time during his time with the Vegas Golden Knights, Jonathan Quick was pulled from the game in favor of backup goaltender Laurent Brossoit. Quick allowed six of the seven Oiler goals, making 28 saves on 34 shots for a final save percentage of .824. Quick was pulled at the conclusion of the second period.
Brossoit made four saves on the five shots he faced for a final save percentage of .800.
Right-winger Jonathan Marchessault and defenseman Alex Pietrangelo were the only two Golden Knight players to record a multi-point game. Marchessault scored two goals including the game’s first goal 1:12 into the contest while Pietrangelo contributed two assists to the VGK’s efforts.
“It was a tough game for us,” Marchessault said. “I just didn’t like our effort despite being down two or three goals. It’s a playoff team and it’s a playoff game for us and you have to battle until the end. You never know, we might face them along the way so I just didn’t like the second half of the game there.”
The story of the game came in the second period and is where most of the momentum started to shift one direction. With just under 17 minutes to play in the period, center Michael Amadio scored to tie the game up at three apiece. From there, Edmonton proceeded to score the next three goals in the period to go up 6-3 at the second intermission. They then opened the third period with another goal, making it a total of four unanswered goals by the visitors.