Bigger, skilled Golden Knights defence poses challenge for Oilers in Round 2

The Edmonton Oilers will play their first game of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Tuesday evening.

New series, new challenge.

And certainly one the Edmonton Oilers are familiar with.

The National Hockey League club’s next opponent in the 2025 playoffs are the Vegas Golden Knights, their division rival and the team that beat them two years ago en route to a Stanley Cup victory. And bearers of big defencemen.

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Game 1 of their second-round series starts Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in Las Vegas. The Oilers dispatched the Los Angeles Kings from postseason play last week in their first-round showdown.

Both Edmonton players and coaches know the Vegas beast will be different than that of the Kings.

Forwards Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane, and head coach Kris Knoblauch, all mentioned early in their interviews with media on Monday after practice how “big” the defencemen of the Golden Knights are.

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The Golden Knights’ top-six defencemen are indeed a beefy bunch:

Noah Hanifin is 6-foot-3, 206 pounds.

Nicolas Hague is 6-6, 245.

Brayden McNabb? 6-4, 215.

How about Alex Pietrangelo? 6-3, 215.

Seeing a trend yet?

Shea Theodore: 6-2, 197

And Zach Whitecloud: 6-2, 210.

Kane describes the “big, heavy” Vegas blueline crew as one that “takes away a lot of time and space.”

“They eat up a lot of pucks,” he said. “It’s definitely going to be a challenge for our group.”

• Oilers a deeper team than the one Golden Knights beat in 2023 NHL playoffs

Draisaitl, this regular season’s leading NHL goal-scorer with 52, said Vegas and Los Angeles have “different systems” and that the Golden Knights’ ‘D’ have “really good sticks” beyond being sizable physically.

“They really rely on their system – nothing that we haven’t seen or that we’re not capable of dealing with or handling – but at this stage of the year, I think any team has something that they do really well, and obviously, they had another great year,” Draisaitl said.

And while bigger opponents on defence will “make it hard to get to the net,” head coach Knoblauch said, Golden Knights defenders have skill, too.

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“As big as they are and as physical as they are, they still have a lot of offensive ability,” he said.

“Usually, you think of big, strong defencemen being stay-at-home guys that don’t produce much offensive in the play, but I don’t think that’s the case with them at all. All six of them provide some offence but make it hard for the opposition, hard to get to the net, just with their size and strength (and) with their systems.”

And part of that is the Golden Knights’ effectiveness off the rush, which Knoblauch called “dangerous.” He said their opponents scored more goals off it than any other team in the regular season

“That’s going to be really important, that we are managing pucks and have a good back-check to limit those,” Knoblauch said.

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One factor that benefits the Oilers in playing against a larger-in-stature defence is the fact they’ve added size up front for the playoffs. Both Kane (6-2, 218 lb.) and Trent Frederic (6-3, 221 lb.) were added to the team’s lineup in the postseason.

Draisaitl said their presence “makes a big difference.”

“You can get by in the regular season with a little bit more skill, but I think having those guys when it gets heavier, especially against a team like Vegas that is big and heavy, (will be of benefit.)

“They’re going to lean on you, and having guys like that in your lineup who know how to play in these situations obviously helps.”