A good Knights’ work in sweep by Oilers
Edmonton becomes first team to beat red-hot Las Vegas twice this season
LAS VEGAS A sweep in Sin City. Go figure.
What are the odds that the Edmonton Oilers, scrambling to stay awake in the playoff race halfway through the season, would be the first team to beat the Vegas Golden Knights two times this season — 8-2 at Rogers Place and 3-2 in overtime at the T-Mobile Madhouse off the strip.
It was the first OT loss in seven tries for the Golden Knights as Darnell Nurse squeezed one through Marc-Andre Fleury for his third goal in two nights and fourth in the last four games, against the best home team (18-2-2) in the league.
It not only ended Vegas’ sevengame home win streak, but the Oilers are the only team in the Pacific Division to get any points against the Golden Knights in their 14 total games.
They’ve beaten up on Anaheim three times and LA twice, but have dropped both games to the Oilers, who refused to go quietly into the desert night on the weekend with wins in Arizona and here after three earlier road losses.
Two wins against Vegas is an exclamation point after so many question marks.
“What it means is anybody can beat anybody on a given night and that’s not going to change in the National Hockey League,” said Oilers coach Todd McLellan.
It’s not bye-bye as they start their bye week.
“Back-to-back wins for the first time in a long time,” said McLellan.
Dec. 21 and Dec. 23 against St. Louis and Montreal at home.
First back-to-backs on the road since Nov. 7 against the Islanders and Nov. 9 against Jersey.
They’re still eight points out of the second wild card and nine behind Calgary for third in the Pacific, which isn’t pretty with too many teams in the West chase having games in hand, but if they’d lost either in Arizona or here on Connor McDavid’s 21st birthday when he picked up two assists to reach 200 points in his 173rd game, it would have been a very sour after-party for Connor.
Not that McDavid even knew he’d hit 200 to become the third youngest active player to do it on or before hitting 21 years of age. “Didn’t know that,” he said. “Yeah, Crosby and Stamkos were younger,” somebody said.
“Uh, whatever. Doesn’t matter,” he said. “A little bit unique that it happened on my birthday, I guess.”
McDavid, who played 26 of the game’s 61 minutes, cared a whole lot more about the two points for the win than the two for the milestone. So did McLellan, who’s a big picture guy.
“I liked the resiliency of our team, even if it wasn’t a Picasso ... playing back-to-back against a team that plays with that kind of pace,” said McLellan. “And the energy we expended on the penalty-kill when we stopped them all (six) ... along with the injuries during the game.”
Maybe no masterpiece but no paint-by-number either.
I liked the resiliency of our team, even if it wasn’t a Picasso ... playing backto-back against a team that plays with that kind of pace.
The Oilers gutted this one out Saturday without centre Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who took a violent hit on his left shoulder from Brayden McNabb in the second period. Winger Milan Lucic also took a skate to his neck from Tomas Nosek.
Nurse again applied the tourniquet to a team that had been bleeding losses until the weekend, but they also got Drake Caggiula’s best game in weeks, moving up to McDavid’s right side in the line jockeying. He tied it with a rifle shot past Fleury and saucered the pass to Nurse in the OT — Caggiula’s first multiple-point game in two months, back to Nov. 18 in Dallas.
After playing 7:13 in Nashville on the trip and 8:43 in Arizona, he got 19:23 here. He looked like last year’s playoff Caggiula a factor as he moved up in the lineup. One bobble when a pass got by him in the slot to William Karlsson for the 2-2 goal with six seconds left in the middle period. But that was it.
He set up Nurse after some dogged work in the Oilers end by Leon Draisaitl.
“Great play into the middle of the ice by Drake. Close your eyes and shoot hard. Works sometimes,” said Nurse who got the game-winner in Arizona and Vegas. He also set up Patrick Maroon’s goal in the second period.