Connor McDavid scored a goal, added two assists, and netted the shootout winner as the Edmonton Oilers secured a 5-4 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night, gaining a measure of revenge for last year’s playoff loss.
“We’ll take wins any way we can get them at this point,” McDavid said. “Obviously, it would be nice to close it up two with five minutes to go — you expect to close that out — but we will take the win any way we can. Definitely, there is momentum in our room. I think we can feel it. I think what we have seen from our last three games is something to build off of.”
McDavid has been on a tear, recording 12 points in his last three games, jumping from 108th to a tie for ninth in the NHL scoring race in just nine days.
“There is a lot less frustration with him than there was two weeks ago,” said Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch. “But other guys, too. When you win games and get some offense, everyone just feels better about themselves, and they’re able to play hockey.”
Sam Gagner, Mattias Janmark, and Evander Kane also scored for the Oilers, who have now won three consecutive games.
Mark Stone, Michael Amadio, Ben Hutton, and Keegan Kolesar scored for the Golden Knights, who have now lost three straight and five of their last six games.
“I thought at times the ice was a little tilted in their favor, but we stuck with it the whole way, we never quit and we were able to squeeze a point out, so it was good,” Hutton said.
Edmonton’s fourth line got the game’s first goal with 6:31 left in the opening period off a faceoff win as Gagner sent a surprising shot on net that beat Vegas netminder Logan Thompson. It was Gagner’s third goal of the season.
The Golden Knights pulled even just over a minute into the second period as Stone deftly deflected a Kaedan Korczak point shot past Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner for his sixth goal of the campaign.
The Oilers regained the lead five minutes into the middle frame when a Mattias Ekholm blast from the top of the circle hit Thompson and caromed off Janmark in front, trickling into the net for his first goal of the year.
Vegas responded 43 seconds later as Amadio left unmarked off a faceoff win, scoring his fourth on a backhand shot.
McDavid continued his hot streak with his eighth goal of the season eight minutes into the second period.
Edmonton went up 4-2 with a late second-period power-play goal as the rebound from an Evan Bouchard shot came to Kane in the blue paint, and he scored his 11th of the season and eighth in his last eight games.
“I thought we played a really good game for about 53 minutes there,” Kane said. “We just can’t let leads like that slip away and give a team in our division that we are trying to catch a point.”
UP NEXT
Golden Knights: Wrap up a three-game road trip at Vancouver on Thursday night.
Oilers: At Winnipeg on Thursday night.
