Locking down leads difficult in playoff series between Oilers, Golden Knights

The Edmonton Oilers are hoping to beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights in Edmonton on Monday so they take a series lead. Jeremy Thompson reports.

Falling behind in a game has felt like a position of strength early in the second-round playoff series between the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights.

Each team came back from two goals down to win a game — Edmonton in Game 1 and Vegas in Game 3.

The Golden Knights scored first and didn’t trail in Game 2 until Leon Draisaitl’s overtime winner for the Oilers. The theme of the series was no lead gets locked down.

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“It’s the way it’s been going,” Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said Monday before Game 4 at Rogers Place.

“Not changing your game is kind of the big thing. It’s hard to do because you do want to hold on a little bit, but you’ve got to keep pushing and keep moving forward and keep that pressure on.

“At the same time, we talk about ourselves as a desperate team and an experienced team that always is going to fight back and never give up.”

The series matches two teams with a wealth of recent playoff experience. The Golden Knights retain 15 players from the squad that claimed the 2023 Stanley Cup.

The Oilers have just as many from the group that reached Game 7 of last year’s Cup final before falling to the Florida Panthers.

Both sides have weathered many a storm to get deep into the post-season.

“The margins are small,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said. “Two good teams that are going at it. Not a lot separating us.”

The Golden Knights were among the NHL leaders in wins when trailing after the first period (12), after the second period (eight) and tied after two periods (11) in the regular season.

The Oilers won six straight playoff games coming from behind before falling 4-3 to Vegas in Game 3.

“If you’re a team that doesn’t score much, that can get in your head if you get behind, but both teams know they have the ability to finish so I don’t think they get too worked up about being behind,” Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy said.

“I don’t think it’s a formula you want to go through every night, but this is the NHL. You’re playing against good players every night. You’re not going to be at your best for stretches of time. Getting through those stretches is the biggest challenge.

“You can’t take 20, 30 minutes off. In five or six, seven minutes, sometimes it doesn’t go your way, but that’s what we’re focused on, trying to limit those lulls.”

Lineup changes

Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch indicated there would be lineup changes for Game 4 and those alterations would be game-time decisions.

Edmonton’s pre-game skate indicated defenceman Troy Stecher could draw in for Ty Emberson and forward Kasperi Kapanen was a possible replacement for Viktor Arvidsson on the fourth line.

“We’ll be making one, maybe two changes and hopefully that will give our team a boost,” Knoblauch said.

“We’ve got guys who aren’t playing right now that have a lot to offer. Whether we need a little more speed, physicality, defensive responsibilities or offence, whatever it is, we’ve some guys who haven’t been playing that can come in and give us a little boost.”

McDavid and top goal scorer Draisaitl skating on separate lines in the morning — their deployment always a subject of great debate among Oilers’ fandom — and Mattias Janmark shifted from the fourth line up with Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins added to pre-game guessing.

“You can read into them and maybe just not write about them,” Knoblauch joked.

He’s played the dynamic duo of McDavid and Draisaitl together and apart within games.

Cassidy says the Golden Knights are prepared for any permutation.

“We’ve got our guys we feel that we’d like to be on the ice when they’re out there either separate or together,” Cassidy said. “We’ll try to find that matchup if we can without disrupting our whole rhythm of the game.”

McDavid leads the Oilers in post-season points with three goals and 13 assists followed by Draisaitl with five goals, including a pair of overtime winners, and 10 assists.

Stone’s status

Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone participated in Monday’s pre-game skate.

He left Game 3 in the first period and didn’t return after Corey Perry’s knee clipped him during Stone’s baseball slide.

“He’ll be a game-time decision,” Cassidy said. “He was out there this morning and we’ll see how he reacts to that.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2025.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press